Page 1
Design Verification and Test of
Digital VLSI Circuits
NPTEL Video Course
Module-I
Lecture-I
Introduction to Digital VLSI Design Flow
Page 2
Design Verification and Test of
Digital VLSI Circuits
NPTEL Video Course
Module-I
Lecture-I
Introduction to Digital VLSI Design Flow
Introduction
The functionality of electronics equipments and gadgets has achieved a
phenomenal while their physical sizes and weights have come down drastically.
The major reason is due to the rapid advances in integration technologies, which
enables fabrication of millions of transistors in a single Integrated Circuit (IC) or
chip.
IC (used interchangeably with “chip” in this course) is a device having multiple
transistors with interconnects manufactured on a single silicon substrate.
Integration with a complexity of 10’s of transistors is called Small Scale Integration,
with 100’s is Medium Scale Integration (MSI), with 1000’s is Large Scale Integration
(LSI), with 10,000 it is Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI)
Systems of systems can be implemented in a VLSI IC. However, with this rise in
functionality of VLSI ICs, design problem has become huge and complex.
Page 3
Design Verification and Test of
Digital VLSI Circuits
NPTEL Video Course
Module-I
Lecture-I
Introduction to Digital VLSI Design Flow
Introduction
The functionality of electronics equipments and gadgets has achieved a
phenomenal while their physical sizes and weights have come down drastically.
The major reason is due to the rapid advances in integration technologies, which
enables fabrication of millions of transistors in a single Integrated Circuit (IC) or
chip.
IC (used interchangeably with “chip” in this course) is a device having multiple
transistors with interconnects manufactured on a single silicon substrate.
Integration with a complexity of 10’s of transistors is called Small Scale Integration,
with 100’s is Medium Scale Integration (MSI), with 1000’s is Large Scale Integration
(LSI), with 10,000 it is Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI)
Systems of systems can be implemented in a VLSI IC. However, with this rise in
functionality of VLSI ICs, design problem has become huge and complex.
Introduction
• To address this complexly issue, after the design specifications are complete
almost all the other steps are automated using CAD tools.
•However, even designs automated using CAD tools may have bugs.
•Also, due to extremely large size of the design space it is not
possible to verify correctness of the design under all possible
situations.
•So technique are required that can verify, without exercising exhaustive
input-output combinations, that the design meets all the input specifications;
this technique is called formal verification.
•In VLSI designs millions of transistors are packed into a single chip. This leads to
manufacturing defects and all the chips need to be physically tested by giving input
signals from a pattern generator and comparing responses using a logic analyzer;
this process is called Testing.
So, in the process of manufacturing a VLSI IC there are three broad
steps: DESIGN-VERIFICATION-TEST.
Page 4
Design Verification and Test of
Digital VLSI Circuits
NPTEL Video Course
Module-I
Lecture-I
Introduction to Digital VLSI Design Flow
Introduction
The functionality of electronics equipments and gadgets has achieved a
phenomenal while their physical sizes and weights have come down drastically.
The major reason is due to the rapid advances in integration technologies, which
enables fabrication of millions of transistors in a single Integrated Circuit (IC) or
chip.
IC (used interchangeably with “chip” in this course) is a device having multiple
transistors with interconnects manufactured on a single silicon substrate.
Integration with a complexity of 10’s of transistors is called Small Scale Integration,
with 100’s is Medium Scale Integration (MSI), with 1000’s is Large Scale Integration
(LSI), with 10,000 it is Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI)
Systems of systems can be implemented in a VLSI IC. However, with this rise in
functionality of VLSI ICs, design problem has become huge and complex.
Introduction
• To address this complexly issue, after the design specifications are complete
almost all the other steps are automated using CAD tools.
•However, even designs automated using CAD tools may have bugs.
•Also, due to extremely large size of the design space it is not
possible to verify correctness of the design under all possible
situations.
•So technique are required that can verify, without exercising exhaustive
input-output combinations, that the design meets all the input specifications;
this technique is called formal verification.
•In VLSI designs millions of transistors are packed into a single chip. This leads to
manufacturing defects and all the chips need to be physically tested by giving input
signals from a pattern generator and comparing responses using a logic analyzer;
this process is called Testing.
So, in the process of manufacturing a VLSI IC there are three broad
steps: DESIGN-VERIFICATION-TEST.
Introduction
• VLSI ICs can be divided into analog, digital or mixed-signal (both analog and
digital on the same chip) based on their functionality.
•Digital ICs can contain logic gates, flip-flops, multiplexers,
•Work using binary mathematics to process "one" and "zero" signals.
•Analog ICs, such as current mirrors, voltage followers, filters, OPAMPs etc. work by
processing continuous signals.
•When single IC has both analog and digital components it is called mixed signal IC
e.g, Analog to Digital Converter (ADC).
•The automation algorithms and CAD tools are mainly available for digital ICs
because transformation of design specifications to silicon implementation can be
accomplished using logical procedures (which can be converted to algorithms and
tools).
•However, most of the analog circuits design is like an “art” which is best
performed by designers with “aid” of some CAD tools (which provides feedback to
designer if the manual design is progressing fine etc.)
Page 5
Design Verification and Test of
Digital VLSI Circuits
NPTEL Video Course
Module-I
Lecture-I
Introduction to Digital VLSI Design Flow
Introduction
The functionality of electronics equipments and gadgets has achieved a
phenomenal while their physical sizes and weights have come down drastically.
The major reason is due to the rapid advances in integration technologies, which
enables fabrication of millions of transistors in a single Integrated Circuit (IC) or
chip.
IC (used interchangeably with “chip” in this course) is a device having multiple
transistors with interconnects manufactured on a single silicon substrate.
Integration with a complexity of 10’s of transistors is called Small Scale Integration,
with 100’s is Medium Scale Integration (MSI), with 1000’s is Large Scale Integration
(LSI), with 10,000 it is Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI)
Systems of systems can be implemented in a VLSI IC. However, with this rise in
functionality of VLSI ICs, design problem has become huge and complex.
Introduction
• To address this complexly issue, after the design specifications are complete
almost all the other steps are automated using CAD tools.
•However, even designs automated using CAD tools may have bugs.
•Also, due to extremely large size of the design space it is not
possible to verify correctness of the design under all possible
situations.
•So technique are required that can verify, without exercising exhaustive
input-output combinations, that the design meets all the input specifications;
this technique is called formal verification.
•In VLSI designs millions of transistors are packed into a single chip. This leads to
manufacturing defects and all the chips need to be physically tested by giving input
signals from a pattern generator and comparing responses using a logic analyzer;
this process is called Testing.
So, in the process of manufacturing a VLSI IC there are three broad
steps: DESIGN-VERIFICATION-TEST.
Introduction
• VLSI ICs can be divided into analog, digital or mixed-signal (both analog and
digital on the same chip) based on their functionality.
•Digital ICs can contain logic gates, flip-flops, multiplexers,
•Work using binary mathematics to process "one" and "zero" signals.
•Analog ICs, such as current mirrors, voltage followers, filters, OPAMPs etc. work by
processing continuous signals.
•When single IC has both analog and digital components it is called mixed signal IC
e.g, Analog to Digital Converter (ADC).
•The automation algorithms and CAD tools are mainly available for digital ICs
because transformation of design specifications to silicon implementation can be
accomplished using logical procedures (which can be converted to algorithms and
tools).
•However, most of the analog circuits design is like an “art” which is best
performed by designers with “aid” of some CAD tools (which provides feedback to
designer if the manual design is progressing fine etc.)
Introduction
• In this course we will deal only with digital VLSI circuits. Henceforth, in this course
VLSI IC would imply digital VLSI ICs only and whenever we want to discuss about
analog or mixed signal ICs it will be mentioned explicitly. Also, in this course the
terms ICs and chips would mean VLSI ICs and chips.
• This course is concerned with algorithms required to automate the three steps
“DESIGN-VERIFICATION-TEST” for Digital VLSI ICs.
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