IN3170/4170, Spring 2020 · Why do an ASIC? Well,whynot? I...

IN3170/4170, Spring 2020

Philipp Hä[email protected]

What to expect

Content

Why Application Specific Integrated Circuits?

Why Transistor Level Digital?

Why Analog?

Course Goal

Course Organization

Why do an ASIC?

Well, why not?I Costly (development, design iteration time, production)I Inflexible and low level of reusability

Alternatives?I Embedded SystemsI FPGA (pure digital)I Microcontroller (digital, mixed signal)

So why bother?I Ultimate performance (speed, power)I Ultimate miniaturizationI Reliability (fewer points of failure)I Very cheap for high volume production (e.g. CPUs)I For (Mixed-Signal) Systems-on-Chip (SoC)

Why do an ASIC?

Well, why not?

I Costly (development, design iteration time, production)I Inflexible and low level of reusability



Why do an ASIC?




Why do an ASIC?


Alternatives?

I Embedded SystemsI FPGA (pure digital)I Microcontroller (digital, mixed signal)


Why do an ASIC?




Why do an ASIC?



So why bother?

I Ultimate performance (speed, power)I Ultimate miniaturizationI Reliability (fewer points of failure)I Very cheap for high volume production (e.g. CPUs)I For (Mixed-Signal) Systems-on-Chip (SoC)

Why do an ASIC?




Content



Why Analog?

Course Goal

Course Organization

Why do a Digital ASIC?

See previous arguments for and against ASICThe most important is the small price per piece for high volumeproduction particularly for large scale systems-on-chip (SoC), e.g.CPU, but also FPGAs, GPUs, Microcontrollers etc. (mostly not ’fullcustom’ design but automated ’synthesis’), but real understandingon a single transistor level is required for the ultimate performancein speed, miniaturization, power consumption. Analogous in SW ofwhere it’s worth to program in Assembler.

Content



Why Analog?

Course Goal

Course Organization

The world is analog

Analog electronics for sensor/actuator interfaces

⇔⇔ user⇔

Ubiquitous Sensors Interfaces

Trend to ‘Cyberphysical Systems’

1970

1980

1980

2000

2010

5

Computational Infrastructure• Stationary/backend• Wired• High end computing

Mobile access devices• Human interaction• Portable • Mostly wireless• Battery

Sensory swarm• Miniature• Wireless• Autonomous/self-contained• Controlling and sensing natural processes

1

10

>100

Driven by Moore’s Law

Beyond Moore

Even Computers are Analog ;-)

Where the digital abstraction breaks down

• Gates• Increasing speed

– Why this degradation?– How do we improve

performance?– Digital → analog

• Going for speed…

• Noise/interference

– Where does this noise originate?– How do we reduce this noise/interference?– Digital → analog

• When scaling down size and scaling up complexityTSL inf3410

10

100MHz

1GHz

Content



Why Analog?

Course Goal

Course Organization

Course Goal (1/3)

B

Y

A)

A

A B

C

C

V+ V

-

Vb2

Vb3

Vb1

Vout

B)

Understand these two circuits thoroughly!

Understand: analysis, properties, applications, limitations,tweaking, high level descriptions ...

Course Goal (1/3)

B

Y

A)

A

A B

C

C

V+ V

-

Vb2

Vb3

Vb1

Vout

B)

Understand these two circuits thoroughly!Understand: analysis, properties, applications, limitations,tweaking, high level descriptions ...

Course Goal (2/3)

And thereby understand the basic building blocks of analog anddigital circuits:

B

A

CY

A)

V+

V-

+

-Vout

B)

Y = ¬((A ∧ B) ∨ C )

Vout = A(V+ − V−) (1)

Course Goal (3/3)

... starting from modelling the basic active element of CMOSelectronics, the field effect transistor (FET)

G

S

D

G

S

D

G

S

D

I=g (V -V )m G SR={ 0 if V > V

if V < Vswitch

G

G

switch

G

D

S

R={ 0 if V > V

if V < Vswitch

G

G

switch

nFET symbol Digital Abstractions Analog Linear Abstraction

G

D

R={ 0 if V > V

if V < Vswitch

G

G

switch

S

Content



Why Analog?

Course Goal

Course Organization

Teaching 18 lectures (Mondays 10-12 in Shell), lecture foils,podcast (no guarantee!), book: ‘MicroelectronicCircuits’ by Sedra & Smith, International (!) 7thEdition, selected papers

Labs 3 tasks (counting 40% towards final mark, task 1 isonly pass/not pass), lab assistant: Sebastian Wood,workgroups with up to 3 students

Paper exercises exercises in preparation for exam (!), Tuesdays14-16, teaching assistant: Zhijian Zhou

Tools Cadence, matlab, solder iron/bread board, labequipment

Skills electronics, maths, physics, programmingExam written exam, counting 60% towards final mark, early

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