1. Day 1: August 28, 2013 Introduction and Overview
ESE370: Circuit-Level Modeling, Design, and Optimization for Digital Systems
Day 1: August 28, 2013
Introduction and Overview
Penn ESE370 Fall DeHon

2. Where I come from Physically Implement Computations Architecture
Electronic Design Automation
Design FPGAs
Understand relative strengths and weaknesses of processors, FPGAs, custom silicon
Implications of Technology Scaling
Penn ESE370 Fall DeHon

3. Questions How fast can my computer run?
What limits this speed?
What can I do to make it run faster?
How can I extend the battery life on my gadget?
How much energy must my computation take?
How small can I make a memory?
Why does DRAM need to be refreshed?
Penn ESE370 Fall DeHon

4. Questions How many bits/second can I send over a link?
What limits this?
How do I maximize?
How does technology scaling change these answers?
What can I rely on technology to deliver?
Penn ESE370 Fall DeHon

5. Sample Problems
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6. What does this circuit do? How fast does it operate?
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7. What’s wrong here? How fix?
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8. Limits? Consider a 22nm technology Typical gate with W=3, 2-input NOR
Use chip in cell phone
What prevents us from running 1 billion transistor chip at 10GHz?
Penn ESE370 Fall DeHon

9. Impact of Voltage?
If have a chip running at 1GHz with a 1V power supply dissipating 1W.
What happens if we cut the power supply to 500mV?
Speed?
Power?
Penn ESE370 Fall DeHon

10. Outline Motivating Questions What this course is about Objectives
What you need to know
Structure
Policies
Content
Penn ESE370 Fall DeHon

11. Deconstruction Circuit-Level Modeling, Design, and
Look below the gates
…transistors, resistance,
capacitance, inductance…
Circuit-Level
Modeling,
Design, and
Optimization for Digital Systems
Abstract and predict
Create
Make efficient
(fast,low energy,small)
Compute, store, transmit
binary values (0s, 1s)
Penn ESE370 Fall DeHon

12. What course is about Modeling and abstraction Predict circuit behavior
Well enough to know our design will work
…with specific properties
Speed, energy, ….
Well enough to reason about design and optimization
What knob can I turn to make faster?
How much faster can I expect to make it?
Penn ESE370 Fall DeHon

13. What course is about Modeling and abstraction Back-of-the-envelope
Simple enough to reason about
…without a calculator…
Sensitive to phenomenology
Able to think through the details
With computer assistance
…understanding even that is a simplified approximation
Penn ESE370 Fall DeHon

14. You are here. CIS120 CIS380 CIS240 CIS371, ESE534 ESE170 (ESE200)
Phys151
Penn ESE370 Fall DeHon

15. Objectives
Penn ESE370 Fall DeHon

16. You will learn disciplines for robust digital logic and signaling
(e.g., restoration, clocking)
where delay, energy, area, and noise arises in gates, memory, and interconnect
how to model these physical effects
back-of-the-envelope design
(e.g. RC and Elmore delay)
detailed simulation (e.g. SPICE)
Penn ESE370 Fall DeHon

17. You will learn the nature of tradeoffs in optimization
Among delay, energy, area, noise
how to design and optimize
logic, memory, and interconnect structures
at the gate, transistor, and wire level
how technology scales
and its impact on digital circuits and computer systems
Penn ESE370 Fall DeHon

18. coming in to this course
What you Need to Know
coming in to this course
Penn ESE370 Fall DeHon

19. What you need to know See pages linked from course page CIS170 ESE215
Gates, Boolean logic, DeMorgan’s, optimization
ESE215
RLC circuit analysis
Diagnostic Quiz next time – end of class
Penn ESE370 Fall DeHon

20. Review Session Poll Will work? Tonight (wed) 8pm? Thursday 6pm?
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21. Structure
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22. Structure MWF Lecture Reading from text 4 lecture periods  Lab
3 Detkin
See phenomena first hand before simulate
1 Ketterer  SPICE Intro
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23. Class Better if interactive, everyone engaged Three things
Asking and answering questions
Actively thinking about material
Three things
Preclass exercises
Work during ~5 minutes before lecture starts
Prime for topic of the day
Ask questions of individuals…everyone
Daily feedback sheets
Penn ESE370 Fall DeHon

24. SPICE Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis
Industry standard analog circuit simulator
Non-linear, differential equation solver specialized for circuits
Integrated circuits – simply impractical to build to debug
Must simulate to optimize/validate design
Penn ESE370 Fall DeHon

25. Structures Homeworks – week long (8 total) [25%]
Mostly due Thursday
 want you awake in class Friday
Projects – two weeks long (2 total) [30%]
Design oriented
On two main topics
Computation
Storage
Two midterms [20%]
Final [25%]
Penn ESE370 Fall DeHon

26. Admin Won’t bring printouts to class Use course calendar
Lectures online before class
(most of the time)
Homeworks linked
Homework 1 out now
Reading specified
Penn ESE370 Fall DeHon

27. Policies
Penn ESE370 Fall DeHon

28. Policies See web page for details Turnin homework on canvas
No handwritten homework
Use CAD Tools for circuit drawings
Late homework penalty (10%/day)
Individual work (HW & Project)
CAD drawings, simulations, analysis, writeups
May discuss strategies, but must acknowledge
Penn ESE370 Fall DeHon

29. Content
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30. Content Logic (Computation) [8 weeks] Storage [2 weeks]
Combinational
Sequential
Storage [2 weeks]
Communication [3 weeks]
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31. Content Logic Transistors  Gates
In Lab: build gate, measure delay, restore
Restoration
Delay
Area (no layout  ESE570)
Energy
Synchronous (flip-flops, clocking, dynamic)
Project: fast ripple-carry adder
Penn ESE370 Fall DeHon

32. Content Memory No Lab component RAM Organization
Driving Large Capacitances
Signal amplification/restoration
Project: design a SRAM Register File
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33. Content Communication In Lab Noise Transmission Lines
Measure inductive ground bounce, crosstalk
Experiment with transmissions lines, termination
Noise
Crosstalk
Inductive
Ionizing particles, shot
Transmission Lines
Penn ESE370 Fall DeHon

34. Advice Course is hard (but valuable)
Should be thinking about this material every day
Must read text
Learning is spread over all components
Lecture, reading, homeworks, projects, exams
Must be able to get quantitative answers to get an A (maybe even for B)
Penn ESE370 Fall DeHon

35. Wrapup Admin Big Ideas / takeaway Diagnostic Quiz next time
Find web, get text, assigned reading…
Piazza
Big Ideas / takeaway
Model to enable design
Diagnostic Quiz next time
Review as needed
Remaining Questions?
Penn ESE370 Fall DeHon