Course PM MCC091 Introduction to Integrated Circuit Design Academic year 2015 2016 Course web site For the latest information always check the course web site, which is located in PingPong, Chalmers learning management system. We publish many things with open access, but to access all information you must log in with your Chalmers login ID and you must be registered for the course. The URL for the course page is https://pingpong.chalmers.se/courseid/5460/ The three sections below are taken from the syllabus that can be found at https://www.student.chalmers.se/sp/course?course_id=22756 Aim The overall aim of the course is to introduce the student to the field of CMOS integrated circuit design and to give some introductory training in the use of industrial Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools and in understanding their role in the integrated circuit design flow. Technology node independent performance models for power and speed are presented, giving the student generic tools to estimate cost and performance properties in circuits of present and future CMOS technologies. Goals After the completion of the course the student should be able to: conceive, design, implement, and verify the functionality of basic digital CMOS building blocks in the context of standard-cell design. use simple models suitable for back-of-the-envelope calculations to predict and evaluate circuit performance measures like critical path delays and power dissipation. use industrial-type design automation tools for designing basic CMOS circuit elements following the design flow supported by such tools. carry out basic digital circuit design tasks within given constraints by applying suitable methods, also in a context where non-technical issues and time-to-market aspects are important. describe the fundamental possibilities and limitations of digital and analog CMOS circuit technologies. critically and systematically integrate knowledge to model, simulate, predict and evaluate CMOS circuit behavior, also with limited or incomplete information. communicate circuit design proposals and the rationale underpinning their solutions. 1
Content Introduction to CMOS integrated circuit design; basic building blocks, technology platforms and design tools. Introduction to the circuit design flow: schematic capture, circuit simulation, layout, rule checking, and layout-vs-schematic verification. Hands-on design skill training using industrial electronic design automation (EDA) tools. The MOSFET as a digital switch. The square-law model. The two-port as a static and dynamic large-signal and small-signal model. Basic CMOS technology. The inverter as the basic digital and analog building block Static properties - the voltage transfer characteristics, switching voltage, noise margins. Dynamic properties - the RC delay model, buffer sizing, process corners. Dynamic switching power and static leakage power. Static CMOS logic gates. Designing logic gates with pull-up and pull-down networks. The two-port as a dynamic switching model. Input load capacitances and output driving capability. Technology independent delay measures. Definition of logical effort and parasitic delay. Critical path delays. Sizing gates for minimum path delay. Basic layout using standard-cell layout templates. The adder as a design demonstrator. Ripple carry, carry look-ahead, and prefix-tree adders. Interconnect and wire delay. The RC two-port wire model. Elmore's delay model. Repeaters. Latches and flip-flops. Set-up and hold time requirements. Static and dynamic power consumption. Power and clock distribution. Power gating. Clock gating. Course organization The course runs during study period 1 and gives 7.5 credit points. It is organized as a bottomup sister course to the top-down organized DAT093 "Introduction to electronic system design". The course takes you from the basic building block, the MOS Field Effect Transistor, through CMOS logic gates to sub-systems like adders and data paths. You will derive technology-node independent performance models for power and speed, giving you generic tools to estimate cost and performance properties of present and future CMOS technologies. The course is organized with weekly lectures, home assignments, and one or two circuitdesign tasks organized as a series of hands-on laboratory exercises using industrial electronic design automation (EDA) tools from Cadence. This year we are extending our short movies about the most important topics for your preparation and repetition. Each laboratory session is associated with a pre-lab home assignment, the submission of which on time before the lab session is a prerequisite for being allowed to the lab hall. 2
Scheduled times and activities Time Activity Week/Room Mondays 8-11.45AM Labs group 1 weeks 4-7 room 4220 Mondays 1.15-5PM Labs group 2 weeks 4-7 room 4220 Tuesdays 1.15-4PM Lecture/tutorial weeks 1-8 room ED Thursdays 1.15-4(5)PM Lecture/tutorial weeks 1-8 room ED 3 We will let you know of any changes to the schedule on the course homepage weekly schedule in PingPong. For most Tuesdays lectures and a few Thursday session too, there are short movies on the course PingPong page. We expect you to watch the movie(s) before the corresponding lecture. Home assignment problem sets & pre- lab preparations There will be three home assignment problem sets and pre-lab preparations for the four labs: all in all seven solution sets to hand in. You must hand in your solutions no later than the deadlines shown in the table below. All submissions are individual because they are an integral part of the assessment in the course. You may work together with one other student when you complete the problem sets but each of you must hand in your own solution. If you worked with another student this way, that person must be identified on your submitted solution. You must be able to explain your solution at our request. If we detect deficiencies in your solutions you get a return and you will have revise and resubmit. Lab sessions The lab sessions will run in study weeks 4-7. They will take place in the CSE dept s lab room 4220 on floor 4 in the EDIT building, one floor below the lecture hall ED. We have planned for two lab sessions, both on Mondays. The labs will be performed in groups of two students, so called lab pairs. The teachers will decide who gets assigned to which session and on the lab pairs. The groups will be posted on the course web page no later than at the beginning of study week 3. The labs are compulsory. If you fall ill, or other unforeseen things happen to you very late, please send a text message or an e-mail message to Lena and Christoffer. If you have not submitted your pre-lab assignment on time, you will not be allowed to do the lab. Submissions, feedback, returns and re- submissions Submissions Your solutions to home-assignment problems and pre-lab assignments you shall submit via PingPong. Only submissions through PingPong will be considered since we are several teachers who cooperate on the grading and feedback. Your solutions you shall submit as pdf files except when you are expected to submit an excel file. If your hand-in solution comprises more than one file, you can zip them into one file; it is also possible to submit first one file and then another one. We prefer typed solutions since they are easier to read; however we accept hand-written solutions (except when we want you to submit an excel file), but then you need to scan or photograph your solution and submit it as a pdf file. If you write by hand, you have to write legibly so we can read it. You should include enough of your solution so that we can understand how you arrived at your result. If you take photos of your handwritten solutions make sure the photos are clear enough for the text to be read.
Please, note that the assignment deadlines are not shown in PingPong - this is intentionally so. This way any late submission and revisions can be submitted to the same inbox. Instead, we shall use the timestamp on your submission to decide whether your submission was submitted on time or not. Submission Deadline 1 Hand-in set 1 Mon Sept 7 11.59PM (midnight) 2 Hand-in set 2 Mon Sept 14 11.59PM (midnight) 3 Pre-lab 1 Fri Sept 18 1PM 4 Pre-lab 2 Fri Sept 25 1PM 5 Pre-lab 3 Fri Oct 2 1PM 6 Pre-lab 4 Fri Oct 9 1PM 7 Hand-in set 4 Mon Oct 19 11.59PM (midnight) Feedback We will give feedback on your submission in PingPong; your submission will either be approved or rejected; if rejected you must revised it and resubmitted in PingPong for approval. You should resubmit in the same assignment in PingPong. If you submit your pre-lab assignments on time, we shall give you feedback no later than at the beginning of your Monday lab session. For solutions to home-assignment problem sets that you hand in on Mondays, you shall receive feedback no later than by the start of the lecture on the following Thursday. You can follow your progress in PingPong. You will be able to see if you passed or if you got a return and have to revise, as well as the number of bonus points you have received. Revisions If you get a return, we want your resubmission within one week from when you received our feedback. The final deadline for any resubmissions or late submissions that are to be included in the examination for period 1 2015 is Friday November 27 (that is, about three weeks after the exam). After that we will not grade any submissions until the re-sit exam period in January 2016 unless there are special circumstances such as illness. 4
Literature The main textbook is Weste and Harris: Integrated Circuit Design, 4th Edition. It is available from Cremona where it is 799 SEK. This book is the international edition of the more expensive hardback book CMOS VLSI Design 4th edition. There is a companion web site for the book at http://www.cmosvlsi.com 5 For the analog part we will use a couple of sections from the book: Allen & Holburg: CMOS Analog Circuit Design 2 nd Edition. It is available as an e-book from the Chalmers Library so you do not have to buy an entire book for this part. If you already have Sedra & Smith: Microelectronics Circuits, 5 th or 6 th Edition, used in some courses at Chalmers, that book can also be used for most of the analog part. It is however not available as an e-book. Live links and reading instructions will be made available on the course web site. Instructors Lecturer: Kjell Jeppson, phone: 772 1856, office: room A533 in MC2 building. kjell.jeppson at chalmers.se Examiner and Lena Peterson Lecturer: lenap at chalmers.se, phone: 772 1822, or 0706-268907 office: room 4113 (EDIT building floor 4 V, facing Rännvägen) Lab teaching Christoffer Fougstedt: chrfou at chalmers.se assistants: room 4447 (EDIT building floor 4V) Kjartan Kristjánsson : bjarnik at student.chalmers.se Victor Åberg: abergv at student.chalmers.se Consultation hours We will schedule consultation times that should fit with the deadlines for the pre-lab and home-assignment problem sets. You can find Lena in her office, 4113, at these times. Week 2: Week 3: Week 4: Week 5: Week 6: Week 7: Week 8: Exam week: Mon Sept 7 3-4 PM Fri Sept 11 9-10 AM Mon Sept 14 3-4 PM Thur Sept 17 directly after class at 5 PM Fri Sept 25 9-10 AM Fri Oct 2 9-10 AM Fri Oct 6 4-5 PM Fri Oct 16 3-4 PM Mon Oct 19 3-4 PM Fri Oct 23 9-10 AM Mon Oct 26 3.30-5 PM Wed Oct 28 9-10 AM We may have to change some of these times due to unforeseen events. In that case, notices will be posted in the message board on the course PingPong page.
Examination The course s 7.5 credits are divided into three course elements (Sw. kursmoment): Course element Credits What you have to do to earn these credits 0111 Written examination 3 Pass the final exam 0211 Laboratory 3 Pass the four pre- lab problem sets and pass the four in- lab sessions 0311 Home assignments 1.5 Pass the three home- assignment problem sets Your grade is determined by the final exam (for details, see below). The final exam The final exam is a five-hour closed-book exam. Allowed aids are pen and paper and a Chalmers-allowed calculator 1. The exam comprises six problems each with a maximum score of 10 points, thus in all 60 points. You need at least 50 points to earn the grade 5, 40 points for the grade 4 and 30 points for the grade 3. If you have less than 30 points you fail the exam (usually recorded as U in the grading records). Any bonus points (see below) will be added to your score before the resulting higher grade is determined once you have reached 30 points on the exam. So, bonus points can give you a higher grade, but cannot be used to pass the course. Bonus points Good hand-in problem-set and prelab solutions submitted on time will earn you bonus points - one point per hand-in and pre-lab problem set. All in all, you can earn seven bonus points. To earn you a bonus point, a hand-in or prelab problem-set solution must be 1. handed in on time 2. complete 3. legibly written 4. comprehensible (that is, we must understand what you mean) 5. substantially correct (that is only minor mistakes that do not require resubmission) Your submissions should be written in English. Bonus points will be shown in PingPong for each assignment as Mark=1 or Mark=0. Bonus points are valid for one year only. Workload A 7.5-credit course is to correspond to 1/8 of an academic year, i.e. to a work load of 1600/8=200 hours. During the nine weeks of a study period this corresponds to 22 hours a week. Hence, with two courses running in parallel the nominal workload is 44 hours/week. The time scheduled for this course is 66 hours, 16 hrs. for lab sessions and around 50 hrs. for lectures and exercises. Estimated time for the home assignments and prelabs are 35 hours (5 hrs./assignment, but they may take longer depending on your background). The remaining roughly 100 hours are allotted for self-studies, reading textbooks, etc. That means that in addition to home assignments we expect you to work around 12 hours per week on your 1 Chalmers-allowed calculators for the academic year 2015/16 are Casio FX-82, Texas TI-30 and Sharp EL-W531 (first part of the type designation). Graph-drawing calculators are not allowed. 6
own. Overview of scheduled activities & deadlines The classroom time slots are Tuesdays 1.15-4PM and Thursdays 1.15-4PM (once to 5PM). Lab slots are Monday 8-11.45AM & 1.15-5PM in study weeks 4-6 in lab room 4220. This is a preliminary schedule; there may be some changes in the hours we use. These will be posted on the course web site. Week 1 (36) Tues 1/9 1.15-4PM Lecture Thurs 3/9 1.15-5PM Lecture/tutorial Week 2 (37) Mon 7/9 11.59PM Deadline hand- in 1 Tues 8/9 1.15-4PM Lecture/tutorial Thu 10/9 1.15-4PM Lecture/tutorial Week 3 (38) Mon 14/9 11.59PM Deadline hand- in 2 Tues 15/9 1.15-4PM Lecture/tutorial Thur 17/9 1.15-5PM Lecture/tutorial Fri 18/9 1PM Deadline prelab 1 Week 4 (39) Mon 21/9 8-11.45AM Lab 1 group 1 Mon 21/9 1.15-5PM Lab 1 group 2 Tues 22/9 1.15-4PM Lecture/tutorial Thur 24/9 1.15-4PM Lecture/tutorial Fri 25/9 1PM Deadline prelab 2 Week 5 (40) Mon 28/9 8-11.45AM Lab 2 group 1 Mon 28/9 1.15-5PM Lab 2 group 2 Tues 29/9 1.15-4PM Lecture/tutorial Thur 1/10 1.15-4PM Lecture/tutorial Fri 2/10 1PM Deadline prelab 3 Week 6 (41) Mon 5/10 8-11.45AM Lab 3 group 1 Mon 5/10 1.15-5PM Lab 3 group 2 Tues 6/10 1.15-4PM Lecture/tutorial Thur 8/10 1.15-4PM Lecture/tutorial Fri 9/10 1PM Deadline prelab 3 Week 7 (42) Mon 12/10 8-11.45AM Lab 4 group 1 Mon 12/10 1.15-5PM Lab 4 group 2 Tues 13/10 1.15-4PM Lecture/tutorial Thur 15/10 1.15-4PM Lecture/tutorial Week 8 (43) Mon 19/10 11.59PM Deadline hand- in 4 Tues 20/10 1.15-4PM Lecture/tutorial Thur 22/10 1.15-4PM Lecture/tutorial Exam week Thur 29/10 8.30-13.30 Final exam 7
Changes to the course since last year What we have changed since last year, mainly due to the feedback from the students. We have: Introduced a completely new lab 4 since the old one did not work well pedagogically. Its focus is on connects. This means we had to remove Hand-in 4 since we should still have no more than seven hand-ins in total. Extended the exam to five hours and allowed Chalmers-allowed calculators. This change however has the drawback that the exam has to be in a morning slot since it is the only possibility for five-hour exams. Re-introduced some non-adder iterative logic arrays in the beginning of the course. Addea couplr of excel submission on ILAs before we move on to adders. Added some more short movies. Revamped the adder track and the excel files to make it more consistent. Reformulated some of the hand-in tasks to avoid confusions. 8