What is an ASIC

What is ASIC

ASIC stands for Application Specific Integrated Circuit. ASICs are specific chips (as the name suggest) used to implement both the analog and digital functionalities in high volume aned high performance. ASICs are made to do the specific work as for example CPU in your mobile is ASIC. ASICs are full custom therefore they require higher development costs in order to design and implement.

Design:-

    

    ASIC Design Flow:-

                                Image:https://anysilicon.com/asic-design-flow-ultimate-guide/

1) Specifications:- Specifications of the ASIC is decided from the demand of the consumers. These are generally collected by marketing people.

2) Architectural Design:- The architectural design consists of what all blocks the design should consist of and how they are connected in the system. It comes up with a block diagram. This architecture team will estimate the block area, how to divert the power and how to route it.

3)Logic Design:-It involves coding the data flow of each functional block in a hardware description language like Verilog, VHDL or System Verilog.

4)Logic Verification:-Verification of the each block of hardware. If the design fails the test, the logic design is changed and again verified untill it passes the test

5)Physical Design:-This refers to the backend design cycle. If there’s just one aspect that distinguishes the backend design from the frontend design, then it would be- delay. 

6) Physical Design Verification:- The  physical verification ensures correct layout. Timing Verification verifies that the chip runs at the specified frequency by ensuring setup and hold is met for all timing paths in the design.

7)Chip:- After all the verification a final chip is made 

ASICs can be categorized into three types. They are:

·        Full – Custom ASICs

·        Semi – Custom ASICs

·        Programmable ICs

Image:-https://www.electronicshub.org/introduction-to-asic-technology/

Semi Custom ASICs are divided in Gate Array and Cell based design

Gate Array Based ASIC:- The Gate Array is further divided in two types Channeled and Channel-less

Cell Based ASIC :- The Cell Based ASIC Is further divided in two types Standard Cell and Macro Cell

Coming to Programmable ICs, all the Programmable Logic Devices like PAL, PLA, EPROM based PLD (EPLD), EEPROM based PLD (EEPLD), come under this category.

References : -   [1] https://www.mepits.com/tutorial/169/vlsi/application-specific-integrated-circuit

                          [2] https://www.elprocus.com/application-specific-integrated-circuits/

                          

Author - Pranav Chaudhari