How we design chips: The Digital VLSI Design Flow

This lecture covers the essential principles, flows, and methodologies for designing integrated circuits, starting with the need for a well-defined design methodology to handle complexity. It explains the structured design principle, hierarchy, regularity, modularity, and locality in architecture design. The lecture also delves into the high-level design flow, VLSI design styles, such as full custom and semi custom, and the limitations of full custom design. It further explores abstraction levels in technology, devices, macros, standard cells, RTL, and architecture. The semicustom design flow is detailed, including design entry in VHDL, behavioral verification, logic synthesis, floorplan, and automatic place & route. The semiconductor ecosystem is also discussed.