Understanding SoC: A Comprehensive Overview of System on Chip Technology

1. What is an “SoC”? • SoC = SOC = System on Chip = System on a Chip • Wider use: a Chip that implements a Complete System • More common use: a Chip with one or more CPU cores,Peripheral Interface Blocks, and Dedicated HW Blocks around a System Bus

2. What is ASIC, FPGA, SoC? ASAAS ASAAS ASAAS ASIC FPGA SoC

3. Individual Gates and MemoryPre-designed All Layout except WiresPre-designed LayoutNot Pre-designed Whole ChipPre-designed Full-custom ASIC Gate-array(Structured ASIC) FPGA SoC

4. Inside an FPGA CLB: Configurable Logic Block

5. An example ofan ARM based MCU SoC

6. From a Designer’s Perspective • ASIC, FPGA, SoC: all the same from a designer’s point of view • We are in the SoC age => • Shop for IP blocks (IP block = Library block) • Integrate them with each other and your design

7. What is ASIC? • IC • Full-custom IC • IC = SP or ASSP • SP = Standard Product = Memory chip, Processor • ASSP = Application Specific Standard Product = USB interface chip for ex. • ASIC => Think of Vestel or Cisco – an equipment=box=system maker that buys ICs (SP or ASSP) puts them on a PCB. They sometimes need extra logic => hence ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit)

8. Contemporary (wider)meaning of ASIC • Previous slide described the original (narrow) meaning of ASIC (how the word ASIC came about) • Such chips required quick methods for design because: • constraints in design time • constraints in design personnel • designs were not so aggressive • This resulted in what we call: ASIC Design Flow • Hence: an “ASIC Designer” doing “ASIC Design” may be working on an SP done in ASIC Design Flow as opposed to Full-Custom Flow.

9. Why/when design your own chip or customize an SoC? As opposed to taking a CPU and writing code that runs on it • BECAUSE: • CPU solution is not fast enough (FPGA is slower but offers more parallelism) • CPU is too expensive • CPU sucks too much power • CPU cannot meet the exact I/O timing requirements (no later no earlier) • CPU does not have the right number and mix of I/O pins • Form-factor: CPU is too big and/or requires a heat/sink, fan, and/or chip-set

10. a LOOK at the SECTOR

11. Top Semi Companies (2011) Fabless semi Intel (USA): $50B Samsung (Korea): $29B/$260B+ TSMC (Taiwan): $15B TI (USA): $14B Toshiba (Japan): $13B/$80B Renesas (Japan): $11B Qualcomm (USA): $10B STMicro (Fr-Ita): $10B Hynix (Korea): $9B Micron (USA): $7B Broadcom (USA): $7B AMD (USA): $6B Infineon (Germany): $5B Sony (Japan): $5B/$90B Freescale (USA): $4B Elpida (Japan): $4B NXP (Holland): $4B UMC (Taiwan): $4B NVIDIA (USA): $4B Globalfoundries (USA): $4B FPGA market size $5B Fab = Foundry

12. Top FPGA (=PLD=CPLD) Companies(all with HQs in the USA) Xilinx: 49% Altera: 40% Lattice: 6% Microsemi (was Actel): 4% Quicklogic: 1%

13. DESIGN ISSUES

14. ASIC Implementation Flow SW tools = $100K - $1M 3-12 months ASIC Design ~ 2 months Fabrication NRE = $100K - $4M ~ 1 month Package/Test ~ 1 month Validation

16. - Next few slides are Courtesy of Xilinx (DAC 2001)

22. ASIC Design Flow spec(behav. code) Back-End Verification(Timing, GateSim,Formal, DRC, LVS) Front-End Design Front-End Verification Specification & Arch. Back-End Design Synthesis/Timing HDL RTL HDL RTL HDL gates Layout in GDSII

23. ASIC Design Tool-set Editor Back-End Verification(Timing, GateSim,Formal, DRC, LVS) Front-End Design Front-End Verification Back-End Design Synthesis/Timing HDL RTL Simulator SW Stdcell Library HDL RTL Synthesis SW HDL gates Layout in GDSII Physical design, verif., DFT/ATPG SWs

24. Top EDA Companies(all with HQs in the USA) • Synopsys: $1500M • Mentor Graphics: $900M • Cadence: $850M • Other: 27% • (Above are my 2010 estimates. • Total market size: $4.5B)

25. FPGA Design Flow spec(behav. code) Back-End Verification(Timing, GateSim,Formal, DRC, LVS) Front-End Design Front-End Verification Specification & Arch. HDL RTL HDL RTL Synthesis,Back-end,Timing Bitfile

26. FPGA DesignTool-set for Xilinx Front-End Design Front-End Verification HDL RTL Xilinx ISEEditor, Simulator, SynthesisAll in one IDE HDL RTL Synthesis,Back-end,Timing Bitfile

27. MODERN DIGITAL DESIGN- BASICS -

28. You hardly need anything you learned in your Logic coursein Modern (HDL and Synthesis based) Digital Designbecause: • We write code • We don’t design circuits • At least no gate-level circuits • We don’t care about theorems in Boolean Algebra  • We don’t care about Karnaugh-maps • The synthesis SW (compiler)does the logic minimization for us • The FPGA has 1000s of gates anyway • (OK, in some extreme cases we may need to care) • Before we care about area minimizationwe need to care about meeting timing

29. We write RTL code

30. What is RTL code?

31. What is the RTL programming paradigm?

32. What does RTL mean in the first place? RTL = RT-Level = Register Transfer Level

33. What is RT-Level digital (logic) design? Everything is a STATE MACHINE! Your (RTL) code describes the logic cloud storedVars Cloud of Logic(Combinational) more Flops storedVars_next Inputs Flop Outputs

34. for ex. INCREMENTER clk

35. INCREMENTER clk

36. 0 0 0 0 INCREMENTER 0 0 1 0 clk time

37. 0 0 0 0 INCREMENTER 0 0 1 1 clk time

38. 0 0 0 0 INCREMENTER 1 0 0 1 clk time

39. 0 0 0 0 INCREMENTER 1 1 0 0 clk time

40. 0 0 0 0 INCREMENTER 1 1 1 0 clk time

41. 0 0 0 0 INCREMENTER 1 1 1 1 clk time

42. 0 0 1 0 INCREMENTER 0 1 0 1 clk time

43. Key points in this programming paradigm: • What are we programming? • How will we program? (Any guidelines?) • What is a “flop” by the way?

44. Flop: What is it? Edge-Triggered D-Type Flip Flop= D-Type Flip Flop= Flip-Flop = Flop Edge-Triggered  Flip-Flop as opposed to: Level-Sensitive  Transparent Latch = Latch

45. Flop: explained with WAVEFORMS posedge posedge posedge posedge clk D Q D clk Q Flop = 1-bit DigiCam

46. 2 Flops back to back = Shift Register clk Q1 D Q2 D Q1 clk Q2

47. How a FLOP behaves (shown with a SHIFT REGISTER) t = before posedge clk flop1 flop2 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 1

48. How a FLOP behaves (shown with a SHIFT REGISTER) t = posedge clk flop1 flop2 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1

49. How a FLOP behaves (shown with a SHIFT REGISTER) C2Q delay like good cholestrol t = posedge clk + C2Q delay flop1 flop2 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 0

50. SWITCH = LATCH Latch = Transparent Latch clk clk (= enable) D Q