A pilot project in VLSI refers to a small-scale, initial implementation of a large system with the aim of testing its feasibility, viability and to gather information on the system’s behavior. The objective of a pilot project is to minimize…
Digital vs. Analog
The real-world signals are analog. However, processing, communicating, and storing data in digital form is advantageous over analog form. Therefore, the analog signal is converted to digital form at the transmitter end and again converted back to analog form at…
What are Test Chips in VLSI
A test chip is a small-scale integrated circuit that is specifically designed for testing purposes, feasibility checks and performance analysis. It serves as a platform for evaluating the functionality of individual circuit blocks, testing the reliability of manufacturing processes, and…
Introduction to Digital Electronics
Electronic circuits can broadly be divided into two broad categories: Analog – involves quantities with continuous values Digital – involves quantities with discrete values Some advantages of digital over analog are as below: Efficient processing and reliable transmission Easier storage…
What is MPW in VLSI
MPW stands for Multi-Project Wafer, which is a cost-effective way to prototype integrated circuits. In an MPW, multiple projects share a single wafer during the fabrication process, which enables lower costs by spreading the cost of the wafer among multiple…
ASCII Code
ASCII codes are alphanumeric codes that represent numbers, alphabets, symbols and special characters in computers. ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. Whenever we press a key from the keyboard, the corresponding ASCII code goes into the computer.…
What is a Wafer in VLSI
A wafer is a thin slice of semiconductor material, typically made of silicon, that serves as the substrate for the fabrication of integrated circuits in the field of VLSI. During the fabrication process, the wafer undergoes a series of processes…
What is Post-Silicon Validation
Modern day Syetem-on-Chips are so complex that pre-silicon verification is no more the sufficient step to capture all the design bugs. Even with sophisticated verification process, achieving 100% coverage is difficult. Due to this, few bugs escape from the pre-silicon…
Pre-Silicon Verification vs. Post-Silicon Validation
Both Verification and Validation checks for the correctness of the design. These design steps try to detect and localize functional bugs in the system. While pre-silicon verification runs the test cases on the software prototypes of the design on the…
Synthesis in VLSI
Synthesis transforms the simple RTL design into a gate-level netlist with all the constraints as specified by the designer. In simple language, Synthesis is a process that converts the abstract form of design to a properly implemented chip in terms…