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EZ-COURSEWARE State-of-the-Art Teaching Tools From AMS Teaching Tomorrow’s Technology Today. New Trends in VLSI Design. Processor Performance. Why is Performance Improving?. Better circuit design More memory, cache and register More parallelism (wider data bus, pipelining, etc.)
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EZ-COURSEWAREState-of-the-Art Teaching ToolsFrom AMSTeaching Tomorrow’s Technology Today www.advancedmsinc.com
New Trends in VLSI Design www.advancedmsinc.com
Processor Performance www.advancedmsinc.com
Why is Performance Improving? • Better circuit design • More memory, cache and register • More parallelism (wider data bus, pipelining, etc.) • Transistors are switching faster!!!! www.advancedmsinc.com
Simple Scaling www.advancedmsinc.com
Chip Area 1.5 1.0 0.8 0.6 0.35 0.25 Remark: mm = mircon Intel 386 DX Technology (mm) Intel 486 DX Pentium Pentium Pro & Pentium II 1cm2 www.advancedmsinc.com
Transistor Count vs. Year www.advancedmsinc.com
Average Transistor Price vs. Year www.advancedmsinc.com
Can Scaling Continue in Future? • Scaling works well in the past • In order to keep scaling to work in the future, many technical problems need to be solved. www.advancedmsinc.com
The Roadmap • National Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (NTRS) • Called ITRS (International TRS) since 4th Ed • Projection of future technology requirements for the next 15 years. www.advancedmsinc.com
Roadmap Overview • Focus Technology Working Groups • Design & Test • Process Integration, Devices & Structures • Front End Process • Lithography • Interconnect • Factory Integration • Assembly & Packaging • Crosscut Technology Working Groups • Environment, Safety & Health • Defect Reduction • Metrology • Modeling & Simulation www.advancedmsinc.com
Technology Characteristics *Data for high-performance microprocessor *Data from 97 Edition of Roadmap www.advancedmsinc.com
Technical Problemswith Future VLSI Technology www.advancedmsinc.com
Too much transistors • Design are too complicated • No way to do it manually • Solutions: • CAD • Design hierarchically • Design reuse www.advancedmsinc.com
Area, Performance, Power, Noise • Important to keep area small. • How to achieve such a good performance? • Power consumption is huge. Heat dissipation is also a problem. • Both Capacitive and Inductive Noises are not ignorable now. • Solutions: • Physical Design is an appropriate stage to handle all these. • Many research needs to be done. www.advancedmsinc.com
Interconnect Area • Too many interconnects. • Occupy too much area. • Solution: • More interconnect layers. • Made possible by Chemical-Mechanical Polishing (CMP). • Note that more layers doesn’t necessarily mean less interconnect area. • Also, routing is no longer a 2-D problem. Hence, new CAD algorithms needed. www.advancedmsinc.com
SEM Photo of Metal Layers www.advancedmsinc.com
Cross-Section of Metal Layers www.advancedmsinc.com
Interconnect Delay 1989 1992 1995 1998 2001 2004 2007 Technology Generation(mm) Source: SIA Roadmap 97
Interconnect Delay • Dominating factor in determining circuit performance nowadays. • Solutions: • Copper wire • Low-k (dielectric constant) material • Interconnect Optimization at physical design www.advancedmsinc.com
Design Planning • Need to plan ahead during the early stages of VLSI design cycle. • Need to take physical design into consideration early. • Many research needs to be done. www.advancedmsinc.com
Summary • Technology Trend: • Transistors are smaller. • Transistors and Interconnects are denser. • Chip areas are larger. • Number of metal layers are more. • Problems: • Design complexity. • Tradeoff of Area, Performance, Power, Noise. • Interconnect area and Interconnect delay. • Increasing planning requirements. www.advancedmsinc.com