VLSI Processor Design

Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Christian Mayr

2 hours per week (SWS) lecture, 

2 SWS tutorials, 2 SWS practice

project report  

(see module description)

summer semester 2021
(timeline)

•  every summer semester

elective module 

• consecutive Master’s programme
  "Nanoelectronic Systems",  
  branch of study: Nanoelectronics

• lectures
• lab

Content of the module:
- Basics, concepts and methods for designing complex digital VLSI-systems
- Architectures for highly integrated digital processing systems, with emphasis on user-specific signal processing systems
- Methods for the efficient transfer of architectural concepts in the highly integrated implementation of a digital system.
- Specification and abstract modelling of the system, conversion into a Register-Transfer-Level (RTL) description, automated circuit synthesis and physical implementation (place & route, layout synthesis), delivering the data for the manufacture of the chip.
- Verification of the design on all levels of abstraction (behaviour, implementation) via simulation (functional verification)
- Proof of the equivalence of transformation steps via formal verification, i.e. by checking compliance with design rules (signoff-verification)
 
Objectives:
 
After completion of this module, the students will be able to carry out a complete implementation and verification of a VLSI-System (e. g. a processor with a complexity comparable to an 8051) using industrial design software (Synopsys, Cadence). They have expe-rience of working together in a design team (division of tasks, definition of interfaces, sequence and timing).