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Circuit Extraction
The electric circuit extraction or simply circuit extraction, also netlist extraction, is the translation of an integrated circuit layout back into the electrical circuit (netlist) it is intended to represent. This extracted circuit is needed for various purposes including circuit simulation, static timing analysis, signal integrity, power analysis and optimization, and logic to layout comparison. Each of these functions require a slightly different representation of the circuit, resulting in the need for multiple layout extractions. In addition, there may be a postprocessing step of converting the device-level circuit into a purely digital circuit, but this is not considered part of the extraction process. The detailed functionality of an extraction process will depend on its system environment. The simplest form of extracted circuit may be in the form of a netlist, which is formatted for a particular simulator or analysis program. A more complex extraction may involve writing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Integrated Circuit Layout
Integrated circuit layout, also known IC layout, IC mask layout, or mask design, is the representation of an integrated circuit in terms of planar geometric shapes which correspond to the patterns of metal, oxide, or semiconductor layers that make up the components of the integrated circuit. Originally the overall process was called tapeout as historically early ICs used graphical black crepe tape on mylar media for photo imaging (erroneously believed to reference magnetic data—the photo process greatly predated magnetic media). When using a standard process—where the interaction of the many chemical, thermal, and photographic variables is known and carefully controlled—the behaviour of the final integrated circuit depends largely on the positions and interconnections of the geometric shapes. Using a computer-aided layout tool, the layout engineer—or layout technician—places and connects all of the components that make up the chip such that they meet certain criteria†... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electrical Circuit
An electrical network is an interconnection of electrical components (e.g., batteries, resistors, inductors, capacitors, switches, transistors) or a model of such an interconnection, consisting of electrical elements (e.g., voltage sources, current sources, resistances, inductances, capacitances). An electrical circuit is a network consisting of a closed loop, giving a return path for the current. Linear electrical networks, a special type consisting only of sources (voltage or current), linear lumped elements (resistors, capacitors, inductors), and linear distributed elements (transmission lines), have the property that signals are linearly superimposable. They are thus more easily analyzed, using powerful frequency domain methods such as Laplace transforms, to determine DC response, AC response, and transient response. A resistive circuit is a circuit containing only resistors and ideal current and voltage sources. Analysis of resistive circuits is less complicated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Netlist
In electronic design, a netlist is a description of the connectivity of an electronic circuit. In its simplest form, a netlist consists of a list of the electronic components in a circuit and a list of the nodes they are connected to. A network (net) is a collection of two or more interconnected components. The structure, complexity and representation of netlists can vary considerably, but the fundamental purpose of every netlist is to convey connectivity information. Netlists usually provide nothing more than instances, nodes, and perhaps some attributes of the components involved. If they express much more than this, they are usually considered to be a hardware description language such as Verilog or VHDL, or one of several languages specifically designed for input to simulators or hardware compilers (such as SPICE analog simulation netlists). Types of netlists Netlists can be: * Physical (based upon physical connections) or logical (based upon logical connections) ** For ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SPICE
A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, or stems of plants used for flavoring or as a garnish. Spices are sometimes used in medicine, religious rituals, cosmetics or perfume production. For example, vanilla is commonly used as an ingredient in fragrance manufacturing. A spice may be available in several forms: fresh, whole dried, or pre-ground dried. Generally, spices are dried. Spices may be ground into a powder for convenience. A whole dried spice has the longest shelf life, so it can be purchased and stored in larger amounts, making it cheaper on a per-serving basis. A fresh spice, such as ginger, is usually more flavorful than its dried form, but fresh spices are more expensive and have a much shorter shelf life. Some spices are not always available either fresh or whole, for example turmeric, and often must be purchased in ground form. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Static Timing Analysis
Static timing analysis (STA) is a simulation method of computing the expected timing of a Synchronous circuit, synchronous digital circuit without requiring a simulation of the full circuit. High-performance integrated circuits have traditionally been characterized by the clock frequency at which they operate. Measuring the ability of a circuit to operate at the specified speed requires an ability to measure, during the design process, its delay at numerous steps. Moreover, delay calculation must be incorporated into the inner loop of timing optimizers at various phases of design, such as logic synthesis, layout (Placement (EDA), placement and Routing (EDA), routing), and in in-place optimizations performed late in the design cycle. While such timing measurements can theoretically be performed using a rigorous SPICE, circuit simulation, such an approach is liable to be too slow to be practical. Static timing analysis plays a vital role in facilitating the fast and reasonably ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Signal Integrity
Signal integrity or SI is a set of measures of the quality of an electrical signal. In digital electronics, a stream of binary values is represented by a voltage (or current) waveform. However, digital signals are fundamentally analog in nature, and all signals are subject to effects such as noise, distortion, and loss. Over short distances and at low bit rates, a simple conductor can transmit this with sufficient fidelity. At high bit rates and over longer distances or through various mediums, various effects can degrade the electrical signal to the point where errors occur and the system or device fails. Signal integrity engineering is the task of analyzing and mitigating these effects. It is an important activity at all levels of electronics packaging and assembly, from internal connections of an integrated circuit (IC), A survey of the field of electronic design automation. Portions of IC section of this article were derived (with permission) from Vol II, Chapter 21, ''Noise ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Power Optimization (EDA)
Power optimization is the use of electronic design automation tools to optimize (reduce) the power consumption of a digital design, such as that of an integrated circuit, while preserving the functionality. Introduction and history The increasing speed and complexity of today’s designs implies a significant increase in the power consumption of very-large-scale integration (VLSI) chips. To meet this challenge, researchers have developed many different design techniques to reduce power. The complexity of today’s ICs, with over 100 million transistors, clocked at over 1 GHz, means manual power optimization would be hopelessly slow and all too likely to contain errors. Computer-aided design (CAD) tools and methodologies are mandatory. One of the key features that led to the success of complementary metal-oxide semiconductor, or CMOS, technology was its intrinsic low-power consumption. This meant that circuit designers and electronic design automation (EDA) tools could afford ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Formal Equivalence Checking
Formal equivalence checking process is a part of electronic design automation (EDA), commonly used during the development of digital integrated circuits, to formally prove that two representations of a circuit design exhibit exactly the same behavior. Equivalence checking and levels of abstraction In general, there is a wide range of possible definitions of functional equivalence covering comparisons between different levels of abstraction and varying granularity of timing details. *The most common approach is to consider the problem of machine equivalence which defines two synchronous design specifications functionally equivalent if, clock by clock, they produce ''exactly'' the same sequence of output signals for ''any'' valid sequence of input signals. *Microprocessor designers use equivalence checking to compare the functions specified for the instruction set architecture (ISA) with a register transfer level (RTL) implementation, ensuring that any program executed on both ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Digital Circuit
In theoretical computer science, a circuit is a model of computation in which input values proceed through a sequence of gates, each of which computes a function. Circuits of this kind provide a generalization of Boolean circuits and a mathematical model for digital logic circuits. Circuits are defined by the gates they contain and the values the gates can produce. For example, the values in a Boolean circuit are boolean values, and the circuit includes conjunction, disjunction, and negation gates. The values in an integer circuit are sets of integers and the gates compute set union, set intersection, and set complement, as well as the arithmetic operations addition and multiplication. Formal definition A circuit is a triple (M, L, G), where * M is a set of values, * L is a set of gate labels, each of which is a function from M^ to M for some non-negative integer i (where i represents the number of inputs to the gate), and * G is a labelled directed acyclic graph with labels fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electromagnetic Field Solver
Electromagnetic field solvers (or sometimes just field solvers) are specialized programs that solve (a subset of) Maxwell's equations directly. They form a part of the field of electronic design automation, or EDA, and are commonly used in the design of integrated circuits and printed circuit boards. They are used when a solution from first principles is needed, or the highest accuracy is required. Introduction The extraction of parasitic circuit models is important for various aspects of physical verification such as timing, signal integrity, substrate coupling, and power grid analysis. As circuit speeds and densities have increased, the need has grown to account accurately for parasitic effects for larger and more complicated interconnect structures. In addition, the electromagnetic complexity has grown as well, from resistance and capacitance, to inductance, and now even full electromagnetic wave propagation. This increase in complexity has also grown for the analy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electronic Design Automation
Electronic design automation (EDA), also referred to as electronic computer-aided design (ECAD), is a category of software tools for designing Electronics, electronic systems such as integrated circuits and printed circuit boards. The tools work together in a Design flow (EDA), design flow that chip designers use to design and analyze entire semiconductor chips. Since a modern semiconductor chip can have billions of components, EDA tools are essential for their design; this article in particular describes EDA specifically with respect to integrated circuits (ICs). History Early days Prior to the development of EDA, integrated circuits were designed by hand and manually laid out. Some advanced shops used geometric software to generate tapes for a Gerber format, Gerber photoplotter, responsible for generating a monochromatic exposure image, but even those copied digital recordings of mechanically drawn components. The process was fundamentally graphic, with the translation f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electronic Engineering
Electronics engineering is a sub-discipline of electrical engineering which emerged in the early 20th century and is distinguished by the additional use of active components such as semiconductor devices to amplify and control electric current flow. Previously electrical engineering only used passive devices such as mechanical switches, resistors, inductors and capacitors. It covers fields such as: analog electronics, digital electronics, consumer electronics, embedded systems and power electronics. It is also involved in many related fields, for example solid-state physics, radio engineering, telecommunications, control systems, signal processing, systems engineering, computer engineering, instrumentation engineering, electric power control, robotics. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is one of the most important professional bodies for electronics engineers in the US; the equivalent body in the UK is the Institution of Engineering and Technology ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
