A 65 nm Design Tape-Out in 6 Weeks - Adapteva€¦ · Advantages: Easy floor ... Advantages: Customization Disadvantages: ... The TALUS RTL to GDS flow offers the most complete implementation

S San Jose, CA | March 10, 2010

Insert CompanyLogo Here

Copyright 2010 Magma Design Automation, Inc.

A 65 nm Design Tape-Out in 6 Weeks

Andreas Olofsson and Roman TroganAdapteva Inc.

2Insert Company

Logo HereCopyright 2010 Magma Design Automation,

Inc

Project Description

• Design:− Multi-million gate ASIC with > 50 hard

macros and hundreds of high speed IO− 65nm high speed process node with 9

metal layers− Very aggressive frequency and power

targets• Flow:− An all Magma tools flow from RTL to GDS

• Resources:− 1 engineer for RTL, DV, Synthesis, and

Layout, Analysis, and Tape-out• Schedule:− 6 weeks from tool purchase order to

tapeout

TALUS DESIGN

TALUS VORTEX

QUARTZ DRC/LVS

TALUS ANALYSIS

TAPEOUT

3Insert Company


Inc

FLATAdvantages: Easy floor-planning Less work? Smaller chip area? Great for junk collection

Disadvantages: Tool capacity!!! Slooooow iterations!!!

HIERARCHICALAdvantages: Determinism Super fast iterations Scalable

Disadvantages: More work? Tedious floor-planning Tool support?

Decisions, decisions, decisions...

4Insert Company


Inc

TFMAdvantages: Quick rampup time Magma supported

Disadvantages: Abstraction Black-box dilemma Fix turnaround time

HomegrownAdvantages: Customization

Disadvantages: Higher risk Longer rampup time!!

More decisions...

5Insert Company


Inc

6Insert Company


Inc

Tiled Flow Lesson #1

Lesson: For symmetrical architectures tiled hierarchical flows work beautifully (hint..design with symmetry)

• One symmetrical core block:− Small and manageable blocks− The key was careful pin

planning− High utilization− Aggressive timing constraints − Correct by design block to

block communication

7Insert Company


Inc

You can't scale without symmetry!!

8Insert Company


Inc


Lesson: Know when to flatten design and when to use hierarchical design techniques

• Mistake:− Trying to connect everything by

abutment− Hierarchical not ideal for

asymmetric blocks with hedgehog interfaces (i.e IO)

− Blocks with 50:1 aspect ratio should be flattened!

• Next time:− A little flatter... BLOCKA BLOCKBPIN_MATCH

9Insert Company


Inc


Lesson: Don't fight the tools!

• Tool limitations:− TALUS wouldn't connect

our tieoffs correctly now matter how hard we tried

− Short point to point routing that wasn't on grid was a disaster.

• Solution:− Simple tcl scripts for

point to point routing

10Insert Company


Inc

TFM and Quartz Report Cards

TFM Very fast rampup time Outstanding support! Pretty buggy initially..but

probably not as buggy as my code would have been

Nice use of a single file for most setup variables

Very flexible Needs to be more

transparent

Quartz LVS/DRC Runsets not available at

start Verification run time not an

issue for our design Fantastic Magma support! Direct Calibre deck read

successful by tapeout time DRC/LVS error correlation

with independent foundry verification

11Insert Company


Inc

Summary

Tiled hierarchical design flows are here to stay! Successful tapeout of multi-million gate SOC within

6 weeks of becoming a MAGMA customer 2 weeks from new floor-plan to GDS-clean 12 hour design cycle from RTL change to GDS clean

The TALUS RTL to GDS flow offers the most complete implementation and most efficient flow this engineering has team has seen to date from any vendor.

Don't buy the hype. With the right people and tools SOCs don't have to cost $75M.

Documents

A 65 nm Design Tape-Out in 6 Weeks - Adapteva€¦ · Advantages: Easy floor ... Advantages: Customization Disadvantages: ... The TALUS RTL to GDS flow offers the most complete implementation