Chapter 196: The Power of the Galaxy Steward
Chapter 196: The Power of the Galaxy Steward
"Then start designing the framework first!"
Because of the new chip reference in Halliday's virtual game computer host, Xiao Jun is still very confident in designing a new chip. After all, there is an advanced reference. He doesn't need to design a chip that is as powerful as a virtual game computer host. He only needs to reach one-third of it and it is estimated that it can surpass the current chip level of the earth.
Over the years, little has changed in the manufacture of chip architectures. According to the large process, the production process of silicon wafers has not changed much since 199x. The only thing that has a relatively large impact on chip design is the increase in design milk as the mos tube becomes smaller.
Xiao Jun spent a day summarizing what was in his mind, and then sorted out a set of directions he was about to design.
Before designing, he also discussed with Halliday, and the other party said that there was no problem with the design direction.
In this way, Xiao Jun immediately started the road of design!
"Architecture design, the first step is to design a digital circuit diagram of the overall architecture..." Xiao Jun sat in front of the computer, opened Verilog, and put his hands on the keyboard to type quickly.
Digital circuits are generally written in Verilog, mainly because of convenience. For example, for CPU-level chips and hundreds of millions of mos tubes, even if you draw one every second, you have to draw for 38 months, excluding the connection time.
It can be seen from here that if you want to research a chip, you don't know how much manpower, material and financial resources you need to consume!
Just a digital circuit diagram of that structure, it is mentioned above that even if you draw a mos tube in a second, it will take 38 months to draw! It's just terrifying.
If Xiao Jun were to design a chip by himself, if he were to complete it by himself, he might not be able to draw all the design drawings in 5 years!
"Fortunately, I have Galaxy Steward!" Xiao Jun stopped after describing the general structure on the computer.
He doesn't plan to draw the picture himself, just leave it to the steward of the galaxy!
"Galaxy Steward, help me draw this architectural design. My current design idea is..." Xiao Jun began to describe it in detail. Yinhe Steward began to draw pictures according to Xiao Jun's ideas.
In fact, it was Xiao Jun who dictated the words, and did not do it himself, but the steward of the galaxy did it!
an hour later.
"This digital circuit diagram is designed like this! When you encounter something you don't understand, ask me."
"In addition to the digital circuit diagram, you have to draw another circuit diagram, that is digital circuit simulation..." After writing verilog, of course, you have to run digital simulation. Generally, you will use vcs of synopsys or mmsim of mentorgraphics.
This simulation is very fast, because each mos tube is regarded as a switch, and then some very rough simulated delay times are added. The purpose is to see if the thing you write can work normally.
Barbara, Xiao Jun talked for about half an hour, and then said to the steward of the galaxy: "After you get this digital simulation out, you analyze the data, calculate the parameters, and then simulate again to see if there is any problem!"
"Yes, master!"
"After completing the above two, the next thing is - the analog circuit circuit diagram! Then you use cadence to design..." This design diagram is more important. Xiao Jun talked for 2 hours and drank two glasses of water.
The reason why it is difficult is that the degree of freedom of the analog circuit is very high! For example, a mos tube is a switch under the condition of a digital circuit, but in an analog circuit, according to the gate voltage and the circuit structure, various functions can be completed in minutes. Therefore, the analog circuit basically has to be drawn by hand. But there is Galaxy Butler in Xiao Jun who doesn't need to draw by hand!
Next, after talking about the above things, Xiao Jun explained the integrated circuit again. Integrated power is actually converting a bunch of descriptive languages into real standard cells (standard gate circuits).
For the next week, Xiao Jun was talking to Galaxy Steward about the requirements, specifications, and directions of the architectural design drawings he imagined.
In addition to starting to design and draw drawings, Yinhe Steward also stored all Xiao Jun's words, understood, digested, and then used them.
The reason why it took Xiao Jun a week to finish the entire chip architecture design diagram is because there are too many things in it.
Analog circuit, digital circuit, design milk check (drc), areaxtoosmall, la lure tversusschematic check (lvs), la lure tdoesnotmatchschematic...
This is only one-fifth of the design of a mobile phone chip.
However, after instilling these into the Galaxy Steward, it also began to comprehensively design these design drawings.
"Report master, I have used 10,000 computers to help you draw the diagrams, and it is estimated that in half a month, I will be able to draw all the circuit diagrams of this structure, and I can also conduct a virtual inspection to see if there are any problems in these design diagrams!" Galaxy Steward said to Xiao Jun.
"Very good, with 10,000 computers, doesn't it mean that there are 10,000 programmers drawing pictures for me? Haha... I saved a lot of salary!" Xiao Jun grinned.
In fact, these 10,000 computers are all controlled by the steward of the galaxy, and the pictures that need to be drawn inside, and how to draw the pictures, are all drawn by the steward of the galaxy. It's just that the steward of the galaxy has created 10,000 clones to control 10,000 computers.
But it can be seen from here that the steward of the galaxy is really powerful!
Not only that, but when the design drawings are out, it can also simulate and test various data to see if there are any problems. If something goes wrong, you can quickly find the wrong thing and modify it!
"Now that the structure is done, let me tell you about the design points of gup..."
In the end, Xiao Jun finally told Galaxy Steward about the signal processing design diagram behind this chip, the communication baseband design diagram, etc. As for the final al chip, Galaxy Steward is the artificial intelligence program.
It can be designed by itself.
You only need to take out one-tenth of his artificial intelligence!
"Galaxy Steward, how long will it take to get all the design drawings of this mobile phone chip?" Xiao Jun asked.
"The follow-up needs to be tested and corrected, and it is estimated that it will take a month!" Galaxy Butler said.
"Very good, I'll wait for your good news." Xiao Jun nodded. After all the design drawings come out, they still need to be sent to physical production, and after production, physical testing will be carried out to see how the performance is. Where will there be problems, and if there are problems, the design drawings need to be modified, and then sent to the actual production for testing...
Anyway, no matter how short this chip is, it is estimated that it will take close to a few months before it comes out, or even longer!