Physical Awareness Starting at Technology-Independent Logic Synthesis

Abstract

This chapter presents a reflection on a VLSI design flow better suited to integrate logic synthesis and physical design. Historically, VLSI design flows were a sequence of relatively independent steps. With advanced technology nodes, steps such as logic synthesis and physical design had to be better integrated. This chapters proposes a better integration through a paradigm shift, where the flow is divided into signal distribution and signal computation. We discuss how to implement this paradigm shift with a set of enablers. This way, both signal distribution and signal computation can benefit from tasks pertaining to logic synthesis and physical design. As a consequence, the emphasis is shifted away from discussing what is logic synthesis and what is physical design. The novel flow focus on designing signal distribution circuitry before performing logic synthesis and physical design of logic computation circuits. The proposed paradigm shift allows the power of logic restructuring using Boolean methods to be unleashed without the fear that long wires introduced later during physical design would invalidate assumptions made during logic synthesis.