Flow Engineering for Physical Implementation Theory and Practice

Flow Engineering for Physical Implementation: Theory and Practice Steve Golson Trilobyte Systems Pete Churchill Magma Design Automation June 10, 2008 45 th Design Automation Conference 1

Define: flow • from http: //education. yahoo. com 2

Define: audience 3

Define: flow 4

Flow (our definition) 5

Define: physical implementation 6

Define: engineering • from http: //education. yahoo. com 7

The Principles of Flow Engineering #1 Flows are hard #2 Flows are iterative #3 Flows are automated #4 Flows fail more than they succeed 8

Principle #1: Flows are hard 9

Principle #1: Flows are hard 10

Principle #1: Flows are hard 11

Principle #1: Flows are hard 12

Principle #1: Flows are hard 13

Quote Quiz “Can’t we use the flow from the last project? ” 1. Management X 2. CAD 3. EDA 4. Design “Nope, we just hacked something together to get the chip out. ” 1. Management 2. CAD 3. EDA 4. Design X “You should just use our recommended flow. ” 1. Management 2. CAD 3. EDA X 4. Design 14

Principle #2: Iteration 15

Principle #2: Iteration 16

Principle #2: Iteration 17

Quote Quiz “The RTL freeze was three weeks ago. ” 1. Management X 2. CAD 3. EDA 4. Design “What about the five changes since then? ” 1. Management 2. CAD 3. EDA 4. Design X “Those weren’t releases, they were ECOs. ” 1. Management X 2. CAD 3. EDA 4. Design 18

Principle #3: Automation 19

Principle #3: Automation “Success in physical design will come from relentless automation. ” Paul Rodman DAC 2002 20

Quote Quiz “We’ve got scripts to automate your ECO flow. The documentation is on our website. ” 1. Management 2. CAD X 3. EDA 4. Design “ 146 pages of documentation. How long will it take us to learn this? ” 1. Management X 2. CAD 3. EDA 4. Design “I don’t need an ECO flow. Get me a six-pack of Red Bull and I’ll have it ready in the morning. ” 1. Management 2. CAD 3. EDA 4. Design X 21

Principle #4: Failure 22

Principle #4: Failure (of scripts and infrastructure) 23

Principle #4: Failure (of scripts and infrastructure) 24

Principle #4: Failure (of sequence of tool invocations) 25

Principle #4: Failure 26

Quote Quiz “Look at the cool wrapper we built around the tool. Now it’s much easier for you to use. ” 1. Management 2. CAD X 3. EDA 4. Design “I got a segmentation fault. What do I do now? ” 1. Management 2. CAD 3. EDA 4. Design X “Can you provide a test case? Without your wrapper? ” 1. Management 2. CAD 3. EDA X 4. Design 27

Principle #4: Failure 28

Goals 29

Quote Quiz “Our goal is to show you the best way to use our tools. ” “Our goal is to build flows, not chips. ” “Our goal is to meet the original schedule. ” “Our goal is to build chips, not flows. ” CAD Design EDA Management 30

The Goals of Flow Development #1 Design independent flow #2 Tool independent flow #3 Technology independent flow #4 User independent flow 31

Principle: iteration Goal: user independence 32

Iteration 33

Configuration management 34

Revision control 35

Revision control 36

Revision control needs to handle: 37

Revision Tags 38

Iteration + user independence 39

Automation + tool independence 40

License management 41

Define: target n. An invocation of a tool modular target n. An invocation of a tool to perform a single focused task 42

Why modular targets are a good idea 43

Example modular targets 44

Sequence management 45

flowfile a make-based target sequence : 46

How would you create and maintain these sequences? 47

flow. Maker window 48

Select a master target 49

Activate the master target 50

Added new target instance 51

New target instance 52

Target menu 53

Rename the target instance 54

Target instance renamed 55

Option Selector 56

Derived file forwarding 57

Derived file selected 58

Job Submission Settings 59

Change tool version for a target 60

Target menu 61

Parallel targets 62

Add another target 63

Rearrange target order 64

Update target options 65

Add duplicate target 66

Save flowfile 67

How to run a flow 68

Anatomy of a flow. Maker master target 69

Anatomy of a flow. Maker master target 70

Master target options 71

Differentflow. Maker users 72

Things to consider 73

Notes on project management 74

A suggested management method 75

Managing iterations 76

Simple progress report 77

The Magic 8 -Ball as a management tool “Will there be problems with my new IP? ” “Is two weeks enough time to complete a floorplan? ” “Will we really see new timing problems if we turn on SI? ” “Will this chip go out on time? ” DON’T YOU MAY IT IS BETTER NOT COUNT TELL YOU NOW RELY ON IT CERTAIN ON IT 78

Checklist 79

What you need: Other stuff 80

What you need: Hardware and Infrastructure 81

What you need: Software 82

Quote Quiz “I still don’t see why we can’t use the flow from the last chip. ” “How about a flow from the EDA vendor? Can’t we start with what they offer? ” “Didn’t the guys in Bangalore just tape out? We can take their flow, right? ” 1. Management X 2. CAD 3. EDA 4. Design 83

Thanks 84

Flow engineering: Things to remember 85