Scott A. Taylor, M. Quinn, Darren Brown, Nathan Dohm, S. Hildebrandt, J. Huggins, Carl Ramey
{"title":"Functional verification of a multiple-issue, out-of-order, superscalar Alpha processor-the DEC Alpha 21264 microprocessor","authors":"Scott A. Taylor, M. Quinn, Darren Brown, Nathan Dohm, S. Hildebrandt, J. Huggins, Carl Ramey","doi":"10.1145/277044.277208","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/277044.277208","url":null,"abstract":"DIGITAL's Alpha 21264 processor is a highly out-of-order, superpipelined, superscalar implementation of the Alpha architecture, capable of a peak execution rate of six instructions per cycle and a sustainable rate of four per cycle. The 21264 also features a 500 MHz clock speed and a high-bandwidth system interface that channels up to 5.3 Gbytes/second of cache data and 2.6 Gbytes/second of main-memory data into the processor. Simulation-based functional verification was performed on the logic design using implementation-directed, pseudo-random exercisers, supplemented with implementation-specific, hand-generated tests. Extensive functional coverage analysis was performed to grade and direct the verification effort. The success of the verification effort was underscored by first prototype chips which were used to boot multiple operating systems across several different prototype systems.","PeriodicalId":221221,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings 1998 Design and Automation Conference. 35th DAC. (Cat. No.98CH36175)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130860318","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"RF IC design challenges","authors":"B. Razavi","doi":"10.1145/277044.277154","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/277044.277154","url":null,"abstract":"This paper describes the challenges in designing RF integrated circuits for wireless transceiver applications. Receiver architectures such as heterodyne, homodyne, and image-reject topologies are presented and two transmitter architectures, namely, one-step and two-step configurations are studied. The design of building blocks: such as low-noise amplifiers, mixers, and oscillators is also considered.","PeriodicalId":221221,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings 1998 Design and Automation Conference. 35th DAC. (Cat. No.98CH36175)","volume":"33 5-6","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114019740","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
B. G. Arsintescu, E. Charbon, E. Malavasi, U. Choudhury, W. Kao
{"title":"General AC constraint transformation for analog ICs","authors":"B. G. Arsintescu, E. Charbon, E. Malavasi, U. Choudhury, W. Kao","doi":"10.1145/277044.277052","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/277044.277052","url":null,"abstract":"The problem of designing complex analog circuits is attacked using a hierarchical top-down, constraint-driven design methodology. In this methodology, constraints are propagated automatically from high-level specifications to physical design through a sequence of gradual transformations. Constraint transformation is a critical step in the methodology, since it determines in large part the degree to which specifications are met. In this paper we describe how constraint transformations can be efficiently carried out using hierarchical parameter modeling and constrained optimization techniques. The process supports complex high-level specification handling and accounts for second-order effects, such as interconnect parasitics and mismatches. The suitability of the approach is demonstrated through an 4th order active filter test case.","PeriodicalId":221221,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings 1998 Design and Automation Conference. 35th DAC. (Cat. No.98CH36175)","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123300512","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A framework for estimating and minimizing energy dissipation of embedded HW/SW systems","authors":"Yanbing Li, J. Henkel","doi":"10.1109/DAC.1998.724464","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/DAC.1998.724464","url":null,"abstract":"Embedded system design is one of the most challenging tasks in VLSI CAD because of the vast amount of system parameters to fix and the great variety of constraints to meet. In this paper we focus on the constraint of low energy dissipation, an indispensable peculiarity of embedded mobile computing systems. We present the first comprehensive framework that simultaneously evaluates the tradeoffs of energy dissipations of software and hardware such as caches and main memory. Unlike previous work in low power research which focused only on software or hardware, our framework optimizes system parameters to minimize energy dissipation of the overall system. The trade-off between system performance and energy dissipation is also explored. Experimental results show that our Avalanche framework can drastically reduce system energy dissipation.","PeriodicalId":221221,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings 1998 Design and Automation Conference. 35th DAC. (Cat. No.98CH36175)","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127345561","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A tool for performance estimation of networked embedded end-systems","authors":"A. Kalavade, P. Moghé","doi":"10.1145/277044.277116","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/277044.277116","url":null,"abstract":"Networked embedded systems are expected to support adaptive streaming audio/video applications with soft real-time constraints. These systems can be designed in a cost efficient manner only if their architecture exploits the \"leads\" suggested by clever compile time performance estimators. However, performance estimation of networked embedded systems is a non-trivial problem. The computational requirements of such systems show statistical variations that stem from several interacting factors. At the slowest time scale, applications can adapt to network bandwidth by configuring the processing functionality of their task (e.g. compression parameters). Also, there could be significant execution time variations within a task. Thus it is tricky to compute the net processing demand of several such applications on a system architecture, especially if the system schedules these applications using prioritized run-time schedulers. In this paper we describe an analytical tool called AsaP for fast performance estimation of such embedded systems. AsaP builds approximate models of these systems and characterizes the processing load on the system as a stochastic process. The output of AsaP is an exact distribution of the processing delay of each application. This is a powerful result that can be leveraged for efficient design of multimedia networked systems requiring soft real-time guarantees. It is also the first known framework that quantifies the effect of runtime schedulers (FCFS, RM, EDF) on the performance of such systems.","PeriodicalId":221221,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings 1998 Design and Automation Conference. 35th DAC. (Cat. No.98CH36175)","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127816173","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Asynchronous interface specification, analysis and synthesis","authors":"M. Kishinevsky, J. Cortadella, A. Kondratyev","doi":"10.1145/277044.277046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/277044.277046","url":null,"abstract":"Interfaces, by nature, are often asynchronous since they serve for connecting multiple distributed modules/agents without common clock. However the most recent developments in the theory of asynchronous design in the areas of specifications, models, analysis, verification, synthesis, technology mapping, timing optimization and performance analysis are not widely known and rarely accepted by industry. The goal of this tutorial is to fill this gap and to present an overview of one popular systematic design methodology for design of asynchronous interface controllers. This methodology is based on using Petri nets (PN) a formal model that, from the engineering standpoint, is a formalization of timing diagrams (waveforms) and from the system designer standpoint is a concurrent state machine, in which local components can perform independent or interdependent concurrent actions, changing their local states asynchronously. We will introduce this model informally based on a simple example: a VME-bus controller serving reads from a device to a bus and writes from the bus into the device.","PeriodicalId":221221,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings 1998 Design and Automation Conference. 35th DAC. (Cat. No.98CH36175)","volume":"57 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127860441","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A. Grbic, S. Brown, S. Caranci, R. Grindley, M. Gusat, G. Lemieux, K. Loveless, N. Manjikian, S. Srbljic, M. Stumm, Z. Vranesic, Z. Zilic
{"title":"Design and implementation of the NUMAchine multiprocessor","authors":"A. Grbic, S. Brown, S. Caranci, R. Grindley, M. Gusat, G. Lemieux, K. Loveless, N. Manjikian, S. Srbljic, M. Stumm, Z. Vranesic, Z. Zilic","doi":"10.1145/277044.277057","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/277044.277057","url":null,"abstract":"This paper describes the design and implementation of the NUMAchine multiprocessor. As the market for CC-NUMA multiprocessors expands, this research project provides a timely architectural design and cost-effective prototype. The key to the successful implementation of our 48-processor prototype is the use of off-the-shelf components and programmable logic devices. Since this machine will serve as a research vehicle for parallel software development, a number of hardware features to enhance experimentation have been included in the design.","PeriodicalId":221221,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings 1998 Design and Automation Conference. 35th DAC. (Cat. No.98CH36175)","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115259305","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A practical approach to static signal electromigration analysis","authors":"Nagaraj Ns, F. Cano, H. Haznedar, D. Young","doi":"10.1109/DAC.1998.724536","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/DAC.1998.724536","url":null,"abstract":"Some literature suggests that sweep back effects may make electromigration (EM) a non-issue in signal lines. However this is only the case when the shape of the positive and negative current pulses are closely matched. Moreover, as performance pressures increase, the peak current values are exceeding the range for which electromigration models are valid. Thus, during the design of TI's TMS320c6201 DSP chip, it was determined that limits needed to be placed on the current densities in signal-line segments, and that every net in the design should be checked. Dynamic current density analysis on all nets of a large design is computationally very expensive. In this paper, we describe a practical CAD methodology for a static, signal electromigration analysis for large cell-based designs. We present results and some observations from application of this methodology on the TMS320c6201.","PeriodicalId":221221,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings 1998 Design and Automation Conference. 35th DAC. (Cat. No.98CH36175)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130690288","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Functional vector generation for HDL models using linear programming and 3-satisfiability","authors":"F. Fallah, S. Devadas, K. Keutzer","doi":"10.1145/277044.277187","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/277044.277187","url":null,"abstract":"Our strategy for automatic generation of functional vectors is based on exercising selected paths in the given hardware description language (HDL) model. The HDL model describes interconnections of arithmetic, logic and memory modules. Given a path in the HDL model, the search for input stimuli that exercise the path can be converted into a standard satisfiability checking problem by expanding the arithmetic modules into logic-gates. However, this approach is not very efficient. We present a new HDL-satisfiability checking algorithm that works directly on the HDL model. The primary feature of our algorithm is a seamless integration of linear-programming techniques for feasibility checking of arithmetic equations that govern the behavior of datapath modules, and 3-SAT checking for logic equations that govern the behavior of control modules. This feature is critically important to efficiency, since it avoids module expansion and allows us to work with logic and arithmetic equations whose cardinality tracks the size of the HDL model. We describe the details of the HDL-satisfiability checking algorithm in this paper. Experimental results which show significant speedups over state-of-the-art gate-level satisfiability checking methods are included.","PeriodicalId":221221,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings 1998 Design and Automation Conference. 35th DAC. (Cat. No.98CH36175)","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123560340","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A DSM design flow: putting floorplanning, technology-mapping, and gate-placement together","authors":"Amir H. Salek, J. Lou, Massoud Pedram","doi":"10.1109/DAC.1998.724453","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/DAC.1998.724453","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents an integrated design flow which combines floorplanning, technology mapping, and placement using a dynamic programming algorithm. The proposed design flow consists of five steps: maximum tree sub-structure formation, levelized cluster tree construction, minimum area implementation using 2-D shape functions, critical path identification, and repeated application of simultaneous floorplanning, technology mapping and gate placement along the timing critical paths. Experimental results obtained from an extensive set of benchmarks demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed flow.","PeriodicalId":221221,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings 1998 Design and Automation Conference. 35th DAC. (Cat. No.98CH36175)","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124373128","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}