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IC layout automation with self-organized wiring and arrangement of responsive modules (SWARM)
(2019)
Focused on automating analog IC layout, the multi-agent-system Self-organized Wir ing and Arrangement of Responsive Modules (SWARM) combines the powers of pro-cedural generators and algorithmic optimization into a novel bottom-up meets top-down flow of supervised layout module interaction. Provoking self-organization via the effect of emergence, examples show SWARM finding even optimal placement solutions and producing constraint-compliant layout blocks which fit into a specified zone.
Anders als Digital-ICs, die hochautomatisiert entworfen werden können, ist der Entwurf analoger ICs bis heute Handarbeit. Übliche auf Optimierung basierende Automatisierungsverfahren scheitern. Die Ursachen wurden jetzt in einem Forschungsprojekt untersucht, um neue Ansätze zur Entwurfsautomatisierung analoger ICs abzuleiten.
After more than three decades of electronic design automation, most layouts for analog integrated circuits are still handcrafted in a laborious manual fashion today. Obverse to the highly automated synthesis tools in the digital domain (coping with the quantitative difficulty of packing more and more components onto a single chip – a desire well known as More Moore), analog layout automation struggles with the many diverse and heavily correlated functional requirements that turn the analog design problem into a More than Moore challenge. Facing this qualitative complexity, seasoned layout engineers rely on their comprehensive expert knowledge to consider all design constraints that uncompromisingly need to be satisfied. This usually involves both formally specified and nonformally communicated pieces of expert knowledge, which entails an explicit and implicit consideration of design constraints, respectively.
Existing automation approaches can be basically divided into optimization algorithms (where constraint consideration occurs explicitly) and procedural generators (where constraints can only be taken into account implicitly). As investigated in this thesis, these two automation strategies follow two fundamentally different paradigms denoted as top-down automation and bottom-up automation. The major trait of top-down automation is that it requires a thorough formalization of the problem to enable a self-intelligent solution finding, whereas a bottom-up automatism –controlled by parameters– merely reproduces solutions that have been preconceived by a layout expert in advance. Since the strengths of one paradigm may compensate the weaknesses of the other, it is assumed that a combination of both paradigms –called bottom-up meets top-down– has much more potential to tackle the analog design problem in its entirety than either optimization-based or generator-based approaches alone.
Against this background, the thesis at hand presents Self-organized Wiring and Arrangement of Responsive Modules (SWARM), an interdisciplinary methodology addressing the design problem with a decentralized multi-agent system. Its basic principle, similar to the roundup of a sheep herd, is to let responsive mobile layout modules (implemented as context-aware procedural generators) interact with each other inside a user-defined layout zone. Each module is allowed to autonomously move, rotate and deform itself, while a supervising control organ successively tightens the layout zone to steer the interaction towards increasingly compact (and constraint compliant) layout arrangements. Considering various principles of self-organization and incorporating ideas from existing decentralized systems, SWARM is able to evoke the phenomenon of emergence: although each module only has a limited viewpoint and selfishly pursues its personal objectives, remarkable overall solutions can emerge on the global scale.
Several examples exhibit this emergent behavior in SWARM, and it is particularly interesting that even optimal solutions can arise from the module interaction. Further examples demonstrate SWARM’s suitability for floorplanning purposes and its application to practical place-and-route problems. The latter illustrates how the interacting modules take care of their respective design requirements implicitly (i.e., bottom-up) while simultaneously paying respect to high level constraints (such as the layout outline imposed top-down by the supervising control organ). Experimental results show that SWARM can outperform optimization algorithms and procedural generators both in terms of layout quality and design productivity. From an academic point of view, SWARM’s grand achievement is to tap fertile virgin soil for future works on novel bottom-up meets top-down automatisms. These may one day be the key to close the automation gap in analog layout design.
Optimization-based analog layout automation does not yet find evident acceptance in the industry due to the complexity of the design problem. This paper presents a Self-organized Wiring and Arrangement of Responsive Modules (SWARM), able to consider crucial design constraints both implicitly and explicitly. The flexibility of algorithmic methods and the expert knowledge captured in PCells combine into a flow of supervised module interaction. This novel approach targets the creation of constraint-compliant layout blocks which fit into a specified zone. Provoking a synergetic self-organization, even optimal layout solutions can emerge from the interaction. Various examples depict the power of that new concept and the potential for future developments.
In diesem Artikel wird ein neu entwickeltes Werkzeug zur Dimensionierung von Bonddrähten im ASIC-Entwurf vorgestellt. Die Berücksichtigung aller Einflussfaktoren erlaubt eine gegenüber Handrechnungen optimierte Auslegung der Bondanordnung. Dies ermöglicht zum einen die Absicherung gegen Degradationseffekte bis hin zum Durchbrennen und garantiert so die Zuverlässigkeit über die gesamte Lebensdauer. Zum anderen wird eine aus Zuverlässigkeitserwägungen resultierende Überdimensionierung vermieden.
Das Werkzeug erlaubt die Kalkulation aller für die Auslegung von Bonddrähten relevanten Parameter. Je nach Kontext der Aufgabenstellung lassen sich die Stromtragfähigkeit für Dauerstrom oder Pulsstrombelastung, kritische Temperaturen oder die maximale Bonddrahtlänge als Ausgabegrößen berechnen. Durch diese Flexibilität und die benutzerfreundliche Integration in eine industrielle Entwicklungsumgebung ist der „Bond-Rechner“ im gesamten Entwurfsverlauf einsetzbar und leistet wertvolle Hilfestellung von ersten Abschätzungen in frühen Entwurfsphasen bis hin zur abschließenden Verifikation.
Ein praktikables Mittel zur Erhöhung des Automatisierungsgrads im analogen IC-Entwurf ist die Verwendung parametrisierter Zellen. Diese sogenannten pCells werden eingesetzt, um determinierte Layouts automatisch zu erzeugen, und zwar in der Regel für einzelne Bauelemente wie Transistoren oder Dioden. Der vorliegende Beitrag zeigt die Potenziale eines erweiterten pCell-Konzepts, mit dem determinierte Layouts als auch Schaltpläne für ganze Schaltungsmodule automatisch generiert werden können. Als Beispiel wird eine solche Modul-pCell für analoge Stromspiegel beschrieben, die nicht nur die Dimensionierung der Einzeltransistoren, sondern auch verschiedene Transistortypen, beliebige Spiegelverhältnisse und sogar mehrere Topologien sowie weitere Freiheitsgrade implementiert. Das dadurch erzielte Maß an Flexibilität erlaubt es, die zahlreichen schaltungstechnischen Varianten im Analogbereich abzudecken, die ansonsten oftmals Hürden für Automatisierungsansätze darstellen.
The limited interfaces of today's IC design environments for editing PCell parameters hinder a solid advancement towards more complex analog PCell modules. This paper presents Hierarchical Instance Parameter Editing (HIPE), a highly flexible concept for the customization of PCell sub-instances. Introducing a new type of parameter, HIPE facilitates the dynamic creation of multi-level editing forms reflecting the actual contents of a PCell instance. This approach greatly improves a PCell's ease-of-use, substantially simplifies PCell development, and allows for a hierarchical execution of parameter validation callbacks. Our HIPE implementation has been integrated into a professional PCell development tool and represents a key enabling technology for upcoming generations of high-level hierarchical PCells.
This paper enhances SWARM, a novel deterministic analog layout automation approach based on the idea of cellular automata. SWARM implements a decentralized interaction model in which responsive layout modules, covering basic circuit types, autonomously move, rotate and deform themselves to let constraint-compliant, compact layout solutions emerge from a synergetic flow of self-organization. With the ability to consider design constraints both implicitly and explicitly, SWARM joins the layout quality of procedural generators with the flexibility of optimization algorithms, combining these two kinds of automation into a “bottom-up meets top-down” flow. The new enhancements are demonstrated in an OTA example, depicting the power of SWARM and its enormous potential for future developments.
In analog layout design, chip floorplans are usually still handcrafted by human experts. Particularly, the nondiscrete variability of block dimensions must be exploited thereby, which is a serious challenge for optimization-based algorithmic floorplanners. This paper presents a fundamentally new automation approach based on self-organization, in which floorplan blocks can autonomously move, rotate and deform themselves to jointly let compact results emerge from a synergistic flow of interaction. Our approach is able to minimize area and wirelength, supports nonslicing floorplan structures, can consider fully variable block dimensions, accounts for a fixed rectilinear boundary, and works absolutely deterministic. The approach is innovatively different from conventional, top-down oriented floorplanning algorithms.