1. About The Document:
This document briefly explains the usage of Magma Electronic Design Automation (EDA) Tool for the design of the Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) Flow. This tool will take you from Register Transfer Level (RTL) to Graphical Design Standard II (GDSII) format.2. The basic requirement to use this document:
This document is prepared aiming the person with little digital circuit design knowledge using any HDL language. Assuming the person is aware of the ASIC Design flow and Digital Optimization techniques (Is explained briefly below).
3. Introduction to ASIC Design Flow:
Any IC other than a general purpose IC which contain the functionality of thousands of gates is usually called an ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit). ASICs are designed to fit a certain application. An ASIC is a digital or mixed-signal circuit designed to meet specifications set by a specific project. The basic ASIC Design Flow is Shown in Figure 3.1.
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Figure 3.1: ASIC Design Flow |
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| Figure 3.2: EDA Tool Flow for ASIC Design |
The EDA Tool that is used for synthesis of a RTL code to GDS II format is Magma Blast Fusion. The details of the Magma Design Flow is explained below
4. Introduction Magma ASIC Design Flow:
Blast Plan Pro is used for the hierarchical design of large integrated circuits (ICs) and systems-on-chip (SoCs) with Magma's production-proven RTL-to-GDSII flow. Hierarchical design methodologies are typically adopted to handle very large designs or to support the concurrent design of a complex chip by a design team. Blast Plan Pro meets both of these requirements and delivers the additional benefit of predictable design closure.
The Magma tools form an integrated set of design engines that are combined with a Tcl interpreter and a sophisticated graphical user interface (GUI). These tools are software applications developed and distributed by Magma Design Automation Incorporated.
The typical simplified design flow of the Magma Blast Fusion is shown in the below Figure 3.
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This tutorial describes how to use the Magma Blast Fusion using command prompt to run these steps on a provided design. Follow the instructions provided in this tutorial to create scripts that perform the steps for the provided design.
The following Figure 4 shows the structure of this tutorial. The instructions for importing the design and constraints depend on whether you start from a netlist or from RTL. After you import the design and constraints, the remaining flow steps are the same.
