C. IC Design Class
After modifying the ZPU design to meet IC development
needs, the actual IC fabrication process can start. This is a
unique opportunity for students compared to traditional design
courses. There is a large difference between the implementation
of an FPGA prototype and a working IC design, because
the designflow of ICs is much more complex. Therefore, the
general contents and peculiarities of this design step are more
elaborate with the ZPU.
For the ZPU, a modern and inexpensive 150 nm CMOS
process from LFoundry was chosen. A first problem was
the planned caches, because the technology used does not
provide memory cells. Therefore, simple flipflops had to be
concatenated and used as a cache. This first problem illustrated
that features, which are presupposed in a computer architecture
class, are not always easy to attain in real hardware.
The impact of the design constraints, especially the clock
frequency, can be seen in synthesis and also in the place&route
step. They affect not only the area and timing results but also
the projected power consumption. The students are made aware
of the impacts and have to find proper constraints. They also
see the difficulty in achieving a high clock rate at all.
C. IC Design Class
After modifying the ZPU design to meet IC development
needs, the actual IC fabrication process can start. This is a
unique opportunity for students compared to traditional design
courses. There is a large difference between the implementation
of an FPGA prototype and a working IC design, because
the designflow of ICs is much more complex. Therefore, the
general contents and peculiarities of this design step are more
elaborate with the ZPU.
For the ZPU, a modern and inexpensive 150 nm CMOS
process from LFoundry was chosen. A first problem was
the planned caches, because the technology used does not
provide memory cells. Therefore, simple flipflops had to be
concatenated and used as a cache. This first problem illustrated
that features, which are presupposed in a computer architecture
class, are not always easy to attain in real hardware.
The impact of the design constraints, especially the clock
frequency, can be seen in synthesis and also in the place&route
step. They affect not only the area and timing results but also
the projected power consumption. The students are made aware
of the impacts and have to find proper constraints. They also
see the difficulty in achieving a high clock rate at all.
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