Front-end Design Tools:Synthesis Tools

Synthesis Tools

Luigi:

With synthesis, which our last tool for discussion.

Nora:

I've heard synthesis mentioned, but I didn't quite understand it.

Luigi:

Synthesis is the bridge between abstract logical design and the concrete physical design. Most front-end design views are descriptions or graphic symbols of gates, flip-flops, registers, and memory blocks. (These are symbolicdesign views with little real physical design information.)

However, real hardware is built with mask patterns used by the semiconductor manufacturer. These physical views describe the devices as they look on the masks and actual chip. The devices are the transistors, wires, resistors, and so forth. Their physical details such as length, height, and area are described in a device library. The device libraries are related to specific semiconductor processes (e.g., 0.15 micron or 0.13 micron).

For each device in the symbolic design, the designer must select a physical device from a device library. This tedious, error-prone mapping process is largely automated by EDA synthesis tools.

The programs do some optimization for power, speed, or area. Some synthesis tools include physical layout and wire length optimization issues as well.

Automatic synthesis is also useful for design re-use. An existing design or IP block can be re-targeted to a faster, denser process. Since new processes are developed about every 18 months, automatic mapping of an existing chip or IP block design to a new process device library can be very useful.

The output of the synthesis tool is a netlist similar to the one used in the FE design. However, the devices in this netlist have real physical and timing views.

Luigi:

That's about it for the front-end tools.

Nora:

Thanks very much, Luigi.

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