Physical design for tsmc 28nm high performance for mobile applications processor core based on ARM cortex-A7

Abstract

An Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a type of integrated circuit that is specifically designed for a particular application or purpose, can be found in almost any modern electronic devices. Every ASIC need a processor to operate which ARM CORTEX is the most suitable processor currently due to its variable applications from low-power consumption, high-performance to specified implementation AI, automation, etc.… The design of processor core is required more and more difficult as the size of transistor continue to shrink, and the supplementary functions integrated all in one chip. On top of that, power and speed (performance) are the two biggest obstacles that affect the system's profitability. Successfully producing an ASIC necessitates a well-developed process with numerous intricately correlated steps, of which Physical Design is one. Physical Design, which is a step of the standard design cycle which accompanies after the Circuit Design, transforms a circuit description in netlist into the geometric layout which represents the position of cells and routes for the interconnections between them and guarantee the function of the circuit. This step is usually split into several sub-steps, which include design, verification and validation of the layout. By Physical Design, the designers determine the operation frequency, area and power dissipation of the design. These criteria mainly depend on the technology libraries that are provided by the fabrication houses. Technologies are commonly classified according to minimal feature size, i.e., 90nm, 65nm, 45nm, 28nm, 22nm, 18nm, 14nm, etc.…. In this project, we concentrate on Physical Design of ARM Cortex-A7 which is a 32-bit microprocessor core licensed by ARM holdings implementing the ARMv7-A architecture. By applying Physical Design, we introduce new layout design of processor core based on ARM Cortex-A7, which is not only narrow the data transmission time of the internal signal hence improve the performance but also optimize the area of the design. The target 1GHz is achievable with TSMC 28nm technology used for this project.