Fig. 4. Chip layout exported from Cadence Virtuoso after stream-in from
Cadence Encounter.
The layout of the final multi-core chip can be seen in
Figure 4. The characteristics of the chip die are listed in
Table I.
D. IC Test Project
The results from the hard work on the chip design from
conception to the final layout is evaluated in the IC test project.
To finally run the Dual-ZPU, it has to be connected to the
FPGA board which is used as a test platform and holds the
external memory. Therefore, a PCB layout has to be designed
to host the final chip. The clock skew between the ZPU and
the FGPA board with the memory also has be considered at
this step. The programs from the computer architecture class
can be loaded on the chip to verify functionality while the scan
chain with ATPG is utilized to ensure the proper functionality
of the circuit. The result of the project is a working prototype,
which can be seen in Figure 5.