Design Representation
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Design
Design can be of any level:
▪ High level design
▪ Intermediate design
▪ Low level detailed design
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Design Representation
▪ Behavioral means what the design supposed to do.
▪ Structural means how it is implemented in terms of the
circuitry or the net list.
▪ Physical means the actual implementation whether it is
implemented as a chip/module/cell.
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Design Representation…
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Design Representation…
▪ Can be represented by Y-diagram.
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Interpretation of Y-diagram
❑ Gajski-Kuhn Y-chart
*[Link]
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Interpretation of Y-diagram…
❑ Gajski-Kuhn Y-chart…
▪ Gajski-Kuhn Y-chart depicts the different perspectives in VLSI
hardware design.
▪ Mostly, it is used for the development of integrated circuits.
▪ The outer shells are generalizations, the inner ones refinements of
the same subject.
▪ The issue in hardware development is most often a top-down
design problem. This is perceived by the three domains of
behavior, structure, and the layout that goes top-down to more
detailed abstraction levels.
▪ The designer can select one of the perspectives and then switch
from one view to another.
[Link] 7
Interpretation of Y-diagram…
❑ Gajski-Kuhn Y-chart…
▪ On the system level, basic properties of an electronic system
are determined. For the behavioral description, block
diagrams are used by making abstractions of signals and their
time response. Blocks used in the structure domain
are CPUs, memory etc. Physical domain uses chip
implementation.
[Link] 8
Interpretation of Y-diagram…
❑ Gajski-Kuhn Y-chart…
▪ The algorithmic level is defined by the definition of concurrent
algorithms (signals, loops, variables, assignments). In the
structural domain, blocks like ALUs are in use.
▪ The register-transfer level (RTL) is a more detailed
abstraction level on which the behavior between
communicating registers and logic units is described. Here, data
structures and data flows are defined. In the geometric view,
the design step of the floorplan is located.
[Link] 9
Interpretation of Y-diagram…
❑ Gajski-Kuhn Y-chart…
▪ The logical level is described in the behavior perspective
by Boolean equations. In the structural view, this is
displayed with gates and flip-flops. In the geometric
domain, the logical level is described by standard cells.
▪ The behavior of the circuit level is described by
mathematics using differential equations or logical
equations. This corresponds to transistors and capacitors
up to crystal lattices.
[Link] 10
Interpretation of Y-diagram…
❑ Alternative Representation of Y-chart
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Interpretation of Y-diagram…
❑ Alternative Representation of Y-chart…
▪ This is in helix shape and actually a top-down approach.
▪ Starts with behavioral domain like Algorithm that
describes how a circuit will work.
▪ The algorithmic behavior is then decomposed into
structural domain such as some interconnections of
processors, memory, I/O etc.
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Interpretation of Y-diagram…
❑ Alternative Representation of Y-chart…
▪ Then geometrical layout represents the floorplan
specifications of the chips i.e. their tentative layout.
▪ Again shifted to behavioral domain that specifies finite
state machine i.e. how CPU, memory etc. works.
▪ And so on…
▪ Finally moved to transistor and mask level
implementation i.e. fabrication.
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