ESE370:
Circuit-Level
Modeling, Design, and Optimization
for Digital Systems
Day 1: September 8, 2010
Introduction and Overview
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Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon
Questions
• How fast can my computer run?
– What limits this speed?
– What can I do to make it run faster?
• How can I extend the battery life on my
gadget?
– How much energy must my computation take?
• How small can I make a memory?
– Why does DRAM need to be refreshed?
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Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon
Questions
• How many bits/second can I send over
a link?
– What limits this?
– How do I maximize?
• How does technology scaling change
these answers?
• What can I rely on technology to deliver?
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Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon
Outline
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Motivating Questions
What this course is about
Objectives
Structure
New…
Policies
Content
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Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon
Deconstruction
• Circuit-Level
Modeling,
Design, and
Optimization
for Digital Systems
Look below the gates
…transistors, resistance,
capacitance, inductance…
Abstract and predict
Create
Make efficient
(fast,low energy,small)
Compute, store, transmit
binary values (0s, 1s)
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Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon
What course about
• What Computer Engineers need to
know about the physical properties in
order to design efficient digital circuits
• Physical Properties
– Delay, Energy (Power), Area, Reliability
• Efficient
– Fast, Low Energy, Small, Won’t Fail (very often)
• Digital Circuits
– Computation, Storage, Communication
Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon
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What course is about
• Modeling and abstraction
– Predict circuit behavior
– Well enough to know our design will work
– …with specific properties
• Speed, energy, ….
– Well enough to reason about design and
optimization
• What knob can I turn to make faster?
• How much faster can I expect to make it?
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Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon
What course is about
• Modeling and abstraction
– Back-of-the-envelope
• Simple enough to reason about
– …without a calculator…
– Sensitive to phenomenology
• Able to think through the details
– With computer assistance
• …understanding even that is a simplified
approximation
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Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon
CIS120
CIS380
CIS240
CIS371,
ESE534
ESE200 (ESE170)
You are here.
ESE205/215, ESE319
ESE218
Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon
Phys151
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Objectives
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Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon
You will learn
• disciplines for robust digital logic and
signaling
– (e.g., restoration, clocking, handshaking)
• where delay, energy, area, and noise arises
in gates, memory, and interconnect
• how to model these physical effects
– back-of-the-envelope design
• (e.g. RC and Elmore delay)
– detailed simulation (e.g. SPICE)
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Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon
You will learn
• the nature of tradeoffs in optimization
– Among delay, energy, area, noise
• how to design and optimize
– logic, memory, and interconnect structures
– at the gate, transistor, and wire level
• how technology scales
– and its impact on digital circuits and
computer systems
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Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon
New Course
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Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon
New Course
• For Penn
– Rough edges
– Will be some experimentation
– Need your feedback (feedback sheets one piece)
• For Me
– Topic about which I’m mostly a consumer
• Use models to do design higher-level design
– How make FPGA, processors, GPU faster, cooler
– How {hot,fast} is my {nanowire,NEMS} circuits
• Do not regularly
– Develop low-level models, circuits
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Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon
Structure
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Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon
Structure
• MWF Lecture
• Reading from text
• 4 lecture periods  Lab
– 3 Detkin (formally RCA)
• See phenomena first hand before simulate
– 1 Ketterer  SPICE Intro
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Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon
SPICE
• Simulation Program with Integrated
Circuit Emphasis
– Industry standard analog circuit simulator
– Non-linear, differential equation solver
specialized for circuits
• Integrated circuits – simply impractical
to build to debug
– Must simulate to optimize/validate design
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Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon
Structures
• Homeworks – week long (6 total)
• Projects – two weeks long (3 total)
– Design oriented
– On three main topics
• Computation
• Storage
• Communication
• One midterm
• Final
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Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon
Admin
• Won’t bring printouts to class
• Use course calendar
– Lectures online before class
• (most of the time)
– Homeworks linked
• Homework 1 out now (tied to first lab visit)
– Reading specified
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Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon
Policies
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Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon
Policies
See web page for details
• Turnin homework on blackboard
– No handwritten homework
– Use CAD Tools for circuit drawings
• Late homework penalty
• Individual work (HW & Project)
– CAD drawings, simulations, analysis, writeups
– May discuss strategies, but must acknowledge
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Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon
Content
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Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon
Content
• Logic (Computation)
[7 weeks]
– Combinational
– Sequential
• Storage
[2 weeks]
• Communication
[3 weeks]
• Energy and Information [1 week]
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Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon
Content
• Logic
– Transistors  Gates
– In Lab: build gate, measure delay, restore
– Restoration
– Delay
– Area (no layout  ESE570)
– Energy
– Synchronous (flip-flops, clocking, dynamic)
– Project: fast (low-power) ripple-carry adder
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Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon
Content
• Memory
– No Lab component
– RAM Organization
– Driving Large Capacitances
– Signal amplification/restoration
– Project: design a Register File
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Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon
Content
• Communication
– In Lab
• Measure inductive ground bounce, crosstalk
• Experiment with transmissions lines, termination
– Noise
• Crosstalk
• Inductive
• Ionizing particles, shot
– Transmission Lines
– Project: Chip-to-chip signaling
• Energy and Information
Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon
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Wrapup
• Admin
– Find web, get text, assigned reading…
• Big Ideas / takeaway
– Model to enable design
• Remaining Questions?
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Penn ESE370 Fall2010 -- DeHon