ECE 558: Introduction to VLSI Design

ECE 658: VLSI Design Principles

Lab 0

This lab would not be graded. It does not comprise of any technical assignment but is meant to be a preparatory lab to equip students for the upcoming lab-assignments.

Task flow for all Labs

In this course all the lab-assignments would be full-custom design.

(Only read to get an idea of how usually Lab assignments would be executed)

1. Lab Problem assigned with particular specifications

2. Do Logic Design (circuit/schematic) using the Cadence Schematic Editor in ‘icms’

3. Extract Netlist (Transistors, R & C) using in-built Cadence tool (within Schematic Editor)

4. Convert extracted netlist into a format compatible to IRSIM (logic simulator) using the perl script “schm2sim.pl”

5. Perform Logical verification of circuit / schematic using IRSIM

6. If logical verification fails go to 2 else continue

7. Determine transistor parameters (approximate sizing) using hand calculations to meet given specifications

8. Use the hand-calculated parameters to set transistor properties in the schematic, again obtain Cadence extracted Netlist.

9. Convert Netlist into HSPICE compatible format using the perl script “schm2spice.pl”

10. Perform the timing & power analysis of the design using the Netlist obtained in HSPICE

11. Do the layout (mask layers) in the Cadence Layout Editor ‘Virtuoso’. Use ‘DRC Check’ feature to avoid Design Rule Violations

12. Extract Netlist (using inbuilt Cadence RC extractor ) & convert into the format suitable for logical verification using perlscript “lo2sim.pl”.

13. Perform logical verification of the layout using IRSIM.

Tasks to perform in Lab 0:

1. Setup Cygwin on your machine by following instructions at

(cygwin already installed in ECS machines at Marston)

http://python.ecs.umass.edu/~cad/cygwin/cygwin.html

2. Set up the CAD tools by following instructions at

http://python.ecs.umass.edu/~cad/setup.html

3. If operating from ECS machines (cygwin already present) or from home practice accessing CAD tools using X-windows

http://python.ecs.umass.edu/~cad/grad.html

4. Based on the task-flow graph described above sequentially

open the tools using instructions given at

http://python.ecs.umass.edu/~cad/design_flow.html

For each tool (instructions) use the specific weblinks given in the weblink above.

5. Improve familiarity with Unix (specifically file-handling in

Unix), perform the following:

a. Create a test directory in your working directory (/mnt2/usrname/vlsix/)

b. Within the test directory create a test file

c. Open the file using the text editor ‘emacs’ (eg. emacs test1). Write your name & ID in the file and save it.

d. Get outside the current directory and create another test directory in your working directory.

e. Copy contents of 1^st test directory into the 2^nd one

f. Delete both the test directories by first removing the individual files and then the directories themselves

To perform the above take help from the following Unix tutorials:

http://python.ecs.umass.edu/~cad/#_Basic_unix_commands