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1998 | Buch

Practical Low Power Digital VLSI Design

verfasst von: Gary Yeap

Verlag: Springer US

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Practical Low Power Digital VLSI Design emphasizes the optimization and trade-off techniques that involve power dissipation, in the hope that the readers are better prepared the next time they are presented with a low power design problem. The book highlights the basic principles, methodologies and techniques that are common to most CMOS digital designs. The advantages and disadvantages of a particular low power technique are discussed. Besides the classical area-performance trade-off, the impact to design cycle time, complexity, risk, testability and reusability are discussed. The wide impacts to all aspects of design are what make low power problems challenging and interesting. Heavy emphasis is given to top-down structured design style, with occasional coverage in the semicustom design methodology. The examples and design techniques cited have been known to be applied to production scale designs or laboratory settings. The goal of Practical Low Power Digital VLSI Design is to permit the readers to practice the low power techniques using current generation design style and process technology.
Practical Low Power Digital VLSI Design considers a wide range of design abstraction levels spanning circuit, logic, architecture and system. Substantial basic knowledge is provided for qualitative and quantitative analysis at the different design abstraction levels. Low power techniques are presented at the circuit, logic, architecture and system levels. Special techniques that are specific to some key areas of digital chip design are discussed as well as some of the low power techniques that are just appearing on the horizon.
Practical Low Power Digital VLSI Design will be of benefit to VLSI design engineers and students who have a fundamental knowledge of CMOS digital design.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Introduction
Abstract
The art of power analysis and optimization of integrated circuits used to be a narrow speciality in analog circuit design. It is now appearing in the mainstream digital design community affecting all aspects of the design process. The interests in lowpower chips and systems are driven by both business and technical needs. The industry for low power consumer electronic products is booming with a rapidly expanding market. At the same time, newer generations of semiconductor processing technologies present more stringent requirements to the power dissipation of digital chips due to increased device density, speed and complexity.
Gary Yeap
Chapter 2. Simulation Power Analysis
Abstract
Computer simulation has been applied to VLSI design for several decades. Most simulation programs operate on mathematical models which mimic the physical laws and properties of the object under simulation. Today, simulation is used for functional verification, performance, cost, reliability and power analysis. Many simulation languages have been developed specifically for IC’s. For example in digital logic simulation, VHDL (Very High Speed IC Hardware Description Language) and Verilog are two popular languages being used. Special purpose hardware has also been developed to speed up the simulation process.
Gary Yeap
Chapter 3. Probabilistic Power Analysis
Abstract
In Chapter 2, we presented the simulation approach to power analysis. The basic principle of the approach is to mimic the circuit behavior over time, based on a predictable power model. Often the power model is built from a lower-level abstraction process called characterization. As we have seen, the simulation approach is very computation intensive. In some cases, we need to solve the voltage or current of the circuit, while in others, we need to simulate the exact time instant on which a certain event occurs in the circuit. In logic simulation, all signal events are recorded precisely by the simulation software. The events are then tabulated and averaged over time to obtain the actual average power dissipation of the circuit.
Gary Yeap
Chapter 4. Circuit
Abstract
The previous chapters have presented the basic theoretical foundations for the analysis of power dissipation at various levels of design abstraction using different solution methods. From this chapter onwards, we will discuss the optimization and trade-off techniques that involve power dissipation for digital circuits. We begin with the lowest level abstraction and proceed upward. The bottom-up organization of the presentation is intentional because it is important to grasp the problems and solutions at the lower levels before proceeding to the higher levels. Low-level trade-off issues tend to be more rigorous with less uncertainty. The problems can often be formulated precisely and solved as an engineering task. As we move up the abstraction level, the optimization and trade-off problems become less exact and obscured due to more freedom in design configuration and decision. As a result, higher level techniques rely more on human intuition and the art of chip design.
Gary Yeap
Chapter 5. Logic
Abstract
Logic design was once the primary abstraction level where automatic design synthesis begins. With the advance of logic synthesis tools and structured VLSI design practice today, logic design is seldom performed manually. However, logic analysis is still the basis of VLSI chip design. A strong foundation in logic design is the key to produce high quality chips.
Gary Yeap
Chapter 6. Special Techniques
Abstract
In the previous chapters, we have discussed methods to reduce power consumption at various levels of design abstraction. The methods are general-purpose because they can be applied to wide varieties of circuits. We have focused on the general techniques of low power design with some specific examples to highlight their applications. In this chapter, we will present some special low power techniques that can be applied to certain types of circuits. The special techniques typically exploit certain unique properties of the circuit and often results in dramatic power reduction.
Gary Yeap
Chapter 7. Architecture and System
Abstract
Today, the most common abstraction level for manual design capture is at the so called register transfer level. At this level, all synchronous registers, latches and the combinational logic between the sequential elements are described in a hardware description language such as Verilog or VHDL. The description is then transformed into logic gate implementations based on a technology specific cell library, a procedure known as logic synthesis. This allows a designer to handle more complex design because detailed manual analysis need not be made at the logic gate level that is more tedious and error prone. Register transfer level is certainly not the only starting point for automated hardware synthesis. The analysis and synthesis of digital circuits are still being pushed toward even higher level of abstraction for manual manipulation. For example, macro block level specification and synthesis has been practiced in some design areas. The register transfer and macro block level design methodologies are part of the architecture and system level techniques to be discussed in this chapter.
Gary Yeap
Chapter 8. Advanced Techniques
Abstract
The technology landscape of VLSI design and fabrication is constantly changing. The techniques for low power design will undoubtedly be affected by the progress in processing technology and design methodology. As we look beyond the current technology profile, some promising low power design techniques appear on the horizon. These design techniques, such as pass transistor logic and asynchronous logic, are not overnight revolutionary breakthroughs. Rather, they are techniques practiced by a few designers in some very narrow application areas. We will examine the characteristics of these design and logic styles, their efficiencies in power, area, performance and other design merit criteria.
Gary Yeap
Backmatter
Metadaten
Titel
Practical Low Power Digital VLSI Design
verfasst von
Gary Yeap
Copyright-Jahr
1998
Verlag
Springer US
Electronic ISBN
978-1-4615-6065-4
Print ISBN
978-1-4613-7778-8
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-6065-4