Principles Of Vlsi Rtl Design

Since register transfer level (RTL) design is less about being a bright engineer, and more about knowing the downstream implications of your work, this book explains the impact of design decisions taken that may give rise later in the product lifecycle to issues related to testability, data synchronization across clock domains, synthesizability, power consumption, routability, etc., all which are a function of the way the RTL was originally written. Readers will benefit from a highly practical approach to the fundamentals of these topics, and will be given clear guidance regarding necessary safeguards to observe during RTL design.

System designers, computer scientists and engineers have c- tinuously invented and employed notations for modeling, speci- ing, simulating, documenting, communicating, teaching, verifying and controlling the designs of digital systems. Initially these s- tems were represented via electronic and fabrication details. F- lowing C. E. Shannon’s revelation of 1948, logic diagrams and Boolean equations were used to represent digital systems in a fa- ion that de-emphasized electronic and fabrication detail while revealing logical behavior. A small number of circuits were made available to remove the abstraction of these representations when it was desirable to do so. As system complexity grew, block diagrams, timing charts, sequence charts, and other graphic and symbolic notations were found to be useful in summarizing the gross features of a system and describing how it operated. In addition, it always seemed necessary or appropriate to augment these documents with lengthy verbal descriptions in a natural language. While each notation was, and still is, a perfectly valid means of expressing a design, lack of standardization, conciseness, and f- mal definitions interfered with communication and the understa- ing between groups of people using different notations. This problem was recognized early and formal languages began to evolve in the 1950s when I. S. Reed discovered that flip-flop input equations were equivalent to a register transfer equation, and that xvi tor-like notation. Expanding these concepts Reed developed a no- tion that became known as a Register Transfer Language (RTL).

Principles of Verifiable RTL Design: A Functional Coding Style Supporting Verification Processes in Verilog explains how you can write Verilog to describe chip designs at the RT-level in a manner that cooperates with verification processes. This cooperation can return an order of magnitude improvement in performance and capacity from tools such as simulation and equivalence checkers. It reduces the labor costs of coverage and formal model checking by facilitating communication between the design engineer and the verification engineer. It also orients the RTL style to provide more useful results from the overall verification process. The intended audience for Principles of Verifiable RTL Design: A Functional Coding Style Supporting Verification Processes in Verilog is engineers and students who need an introduction to various design verification processes and a supporting functional Verilog RTL coding style. A second intended audience is engineers who have been through introductory training in Verilog and now want to develop good RTL writing practices for verification. A third audience is Verilog language instructors who are using a general text on Verilog as the course textbook but want to enrich their lectures with an emphasis on verification. A fourth audience is engineers with substantial Verilog experience who want to improve their Verilog practice to work better with RTL Verilog verification tools. A fifth audience is design consultants searching for proven verification-centric methodologies. A sixth audience is EDA verification tool implementers who want some suggestions about a minimal Verilog verification subset. Principles of Verifiable RTL Design: A Functional Coding Style Supporting Verification Processes in Verilog is based on the reality that comes from actual large-scale product design process and tool experience.

This book is a comprehensive guide to new DFT methods that will show the readers how to design a testable and quality product, drive down test cost, improve product quality and yield, and speed up time-to-market and time-to-volume. Most up-to-date coverage of design for testability. Coverage of industry practices commonly found in commercial DFT tools but not discussed in other books. Numerous, practical examples in each chapter illustrating basic VLSI test principles and DFT architectures.

The skills and guidance needed to master RTL hardware design This book teaches readers how to systematically design efficient, portable, and scalable Register Transfer Level (RTL) digital circuits using the VHDL hardware description language and synthesis software. Focusing on the module-level design, which is composed of functional units, routing circuit, and storage, the book illustrates the relationship between the VHDL constructs and the underlying hardware components, and shows how to develop codes that faithfully reflect the module-level design and can be synthesized into efficient gate-level implementation. Several unique features distinguish the book: * Coding style that shows a clear relationship between VHDL constructs and hardware components * Conceptual diagrams that illustrate the realization of VHDL codes * Emphasis on the code reuse * Practical examples that demonstrate and reinforce design concepts, procedures, and techniques * Two chapters on realizing sequential algorithms in hardware * Two chapters on scalable and parameterized designs and coding * One chapter covering the synchronization and interface between multiple clock domains Although the focus of the book is RTL synthesis, it also examines the synthesis task from the perspective of the overall development process. Readers learn good design practices and guidelines to ensure that an RTL design can accommodate future simulation, verification, and testing needs, and can be easily incorporated into a larger system or reused. Discussion is independent of technology and can be applied to both ASIC and FPGA devices. With a balanced presentation of fundamentals and practical examples, this is an excellent textbook for upper-level undergraduate or graduate courses in advanced digital logic. Engineers who need to make effective use of today's synthesis software and FPGA devices should also refer to this book.

Uses Verilog HDL to illustrate computer architecture and microprocessor design, allowing readers to readily simulate and adjust the operation of each design, and thus build industrially relevant skills Introduces the computer principles, computer design, and how to use Verilog HDL (Hardware Description Language) to implement the design Provides the skills for designing processor/arithmetic/cpu chips, including the unique application of Verilog HDL material for CPU (central processing unit) implementation Despite the many books on Verilog and computer architecture and microprocessor design, few, if any, use Verilog as a key tool in helping a student to understand these design techniques A companion website includes color figures, Verilog HDL codes, extra test benches not found in the book, and PDFs of the figures and simulation waveforms for instructors