ECE 5462
HDL Design and Verification
Copyright 2012 Joanne DeGroat, ECE, OSU
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Lecture Overview
• Course Intro/ Syllabus/ Grading Policy
• General Intro to Digital Design
• Backgound
Copyright 2012 Joanne DeGroat, ECE, OSU
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Syllabus
• The topics list is a guide. Not a class by class
syllabus.
• Note course objective.
• Note grading policy.
• There are many, many books on HDLs and a lot
on VHDL. Most are not texts; these books are
more for reference and often assume you know
the language.
• There are also several books on verification. No
verification text is required. Material will be
provided.
• Note general policies on syllabus.
Copyright 2012 Joanne DeGroat, ECE, OSU
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Intro
• What is a digital system?
– Digital (Webster)
– System
Copyright 2012 Joanne DeGroat, ECE, OSU
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Intro
• What is a digital system?
• Digital (Webster) – Of or relating to the technology of
computers and data communications wherein all
information is encoded as bits of 1s and 0s that
represent on or off states. Contrast with analog. Digital
implies discrete states.
• System – A composite of equipment, skills, techniques, and
information capable of performing and/or supporting an operational
role in attaining specified management objectives. A complete
system includes related facilities, equipment, material, services,
personnel, and information required for its operation to the degree
that it can be considered a self-sufficient unit in its intended
operational and/or support environment.
Copyright 2012 Joanne DeGroat, ECE, OSU
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Graphical Perspective
Vectors of
binary
information
Input
Data
Digital
System
Control
Output
Response
• A Digital System may
be an Application
Specific IC (ASIC) or a
general purpose
computer.
•
•
“Computers are the most
important type of digital
system.”
“Virtually every aspect of
digital system design is
encountered in computer
design.” (Hill and Peterson,
“Digital Logic and
Microprocessors”)
Copyright 2012 Joanne DeGroat, ECE, OSU
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Digital System Design Process
• “Design is a series of transformations.” At each
step decisions are made that bind the design,
moving it toward an implementation. Design
begins at a high level of abstraction and moves
to a very detailed level of abstraction.
(DeGroat 2005)
Idea
Possible
Implementations
Copyright 2012 Joanne DeGroat, ECE, OSU
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Digital System Design Process
• “Design is a series of transformations.” At each
step decisions are made that bind the design,
moving it toward an implementation. Design
begins at a high level of abstraction and moves
to a very detailed level of abstraction suitable for
implementation.
Idea
Design
Decisions
Possible
Implementations
Copyright 2012 Joanne DeGroat, ECE, OSU
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Example
• Addition of 2 numbers to produce a sum
A
B
+
Sum
• Design Decisions
–
–
–
–
–
–
2 input vectors
Addition operation
Single output vector
A & B format - ?? – Binary numbers, 16 bits each, unsigned
Architecture - ?? – ripple adder, carry lookahead
Implementation technology – CMOS, Bipolar, ECL, …
• Design Decisions are significantly impacted by the
specifications
Copyright 2012 Joanne DeGroat, ECE, OSU
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HDL Design Process
• Start with design idea
• Do a behavioral design for reference
• RTL level design
– Design data path
– Design control path
• Use a synthesis tool to produce a gate netlist
• Physical Design – place gates and wire so IC
can be fabricated
• Production
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An example
• From ASiC Technology & News – “Why
ASICs fail in the system.”
– Listen to story about a design that ….
• Key points from story.
– “Designers knew design was right”
– “found a functional error”
– Re-fab and still Chips exploded.
– Months passed slowly.
Copyright 2012 Joanne DeGroat, ECE, OSU
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Story line
• A narration by the CEO
– Design was completed – HDL written, chip design generated,
design sent to fab
– First chip came back and sent to test.
– When tested – the chip package blew the top off.
– Why, oh, why?
– Design was checked for power-ground short – nope.
– More and more checks done. Nothing significant found.
– Did find a few errors and re-fabbed the chip.
– Chips still exploded!!!!
– Another investigation.
– Now the time passed very, very slowly.
– Finally found out that extra metal was added by foundry to
enable even metal deposition. Added metal was not grounded!!!
Copyright 2012 Joanne DeGroat, ECE, OSU
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HDL motivations
• HDL used to describe hardware for purpose of:
–
–
–
–
–
Simulation
Documentation
Modeling
Testing
Design
• HDLs provide a convenient and compact format
for the hierarchical representation of function
and wiring details of digital systems.
Copyright 2012 Joanne DeGroat, ECE, OSU
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PAST HDLs
• ISPS – Instruction
Set Processor
Specification
– Language for
describing the
behavior of digital
systems
– Developed at CMU
– Based on ISP
notation
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PAST HDLs
• AHPL – A Hardware
Programming
Language
– Designed for
representation in an
academic
environment
– Developed at the
University of Arizona.
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Other HDLs
• Genrad Hardware
Description
Language
– Describes
hardware as a
netlist of
components.
– Developed by
Genrad
Corporation, UK
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Other HDLs
• CDL – Computer Design Language
– A dataflow language – no hierarchy
• CONLAN – Consensus Language
– Attempt to establish a standard language. Family of languages
for describing hardware at various levels of abstraction.
• IDL – Interactive Design Language
– Internal IBM – Supports Hierarchy – Originally designed for
generation of PLAs, then extended
• TEGAS – Texas Instruments Hardware Description
Language
– Internal TI – Multilevel language for design and description –
hierarchical
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Other HDLs (cont)
• ZEUS
– GE language – hierarchical – functional descriptions – structural
descriptions – No provision for gate delay specification or timing
constraints – Does not support asynchronous designs.
• Verilog
– Hierarchical – Developed by Cadence Design Systems –
Procedural descriptions for behavior – Built in features for timing
and a fixed logic value system. Now also a standard. Used by
~60% of market.
• UDL1
– Standard language that was developed in Japan – hierarchical –
1 to 1 mapping of language constructs to hardware structures –
Designed for synthesis
• System C
– NEW – now also a standard and supported by tools – had
penetrated to about 10% to 15 % of the market.
Copyright 2012 Joanne DeGroat, ECE, OSU
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VHDL
•
•
•
•
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VHDL – VHSIC Hardware Description Language
A standard language – the first.
Development began in 1980.
Language Requirements set in 1981.
1st Version – Version 7.2 with prototype simulation
tools – 1985-1987
• 1st Standard – IEEE Standard 1076-1987 approved
in 1987.
• New version in 1993. Also versions in 1997, 2000,
2002, and a new version was approved in
September 2008. Work on a new version is
progressing – language will have some new
features.
Copyright 2012 Joanne DeGroat, ECE, OSU
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VHDL features
• Procedural Features
– Would make a very good concurrent programming
language. Up until now file I/O support was poor.
• Dataflow design
• Structural – Hierarchy
• Self defined Value System and capability to design
your own if you would need to.
– A valuable feature of the language
– Some recent work created to ability to do fault simulation
in VHDL through creation of a custom value system
package.
• Semantics and Paradigm formally defined in LRM
Copyright 2012 Joanne DeGroat, ECE, OSU
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In Summary
• There is no way we would have systems of today’s
complexity without the development and evolution
of HDLs.
• Has allowed for design methodology change and
refinement as new capabilities such a synthesis
became available.
• HDLs are living languages.
– Evolution shown in 2008 standard – 140% increase.
• Today’s systems are just too complex to stay with
the design methodologies of the 1980s and even
to early 1990s.
– Consider the time to design a modern processor!
Copyright 2012 Joanne DeGroat, ECE, OSU
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The Future ????
Copyright 2012 Joanne DeGroat, ECE, OSU
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A web search in 2012
• A new evolution from the 4004 in 1971
(108kHz,2300 transistors,10u) to the
Dual core Xeon (>3GHz,820M transistors,
45nm).
Copyright 2012 Joanne DeGroat, ECE, OSU
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A web seach Aug 25, 2015
• From Wikipedia
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1971 TMS 1000 – 8000 transistors – 8um
1971 Intel 4004 – 2300 transistors – 10 um
1972 Intel 8008 – 3500 transistors
1979 Motorola 68000 – 68,000 transistors
1993 Pentium – 3.1 M transistors - .8um
2000 Pentium 4 – 55 M
2006 Pentium 4 Cedar Mill – 184 M - 65nm
2008 Core i7 – 731 M
- 45nm
2010 Quad Core Itanium – 2 B
2015 IBM z13 Storage Controller – 7.1 B 22nm
Copyright 2012 Joanne DeGroat, ECE, OSU
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