Intel Unveils 32nm Chips

Intel on Thursday said it is in volume production of its next-generation 32-nanometer desktop and laptop chips, with products available for low-end, mainstream and high-end PCs.

A total of 17 new CPUs, along with three new chipsets and seven chips providing Wi-Fi and WiMax support, will be available in computer makers' products early next year, following the International Consumer Electronics Show in January, Intel executives said during a news conference in San Francisco. The new products will be in computers covering 400 separate designs.

All the new products are built using Intel's next-generation 32-nanometer technology, codenamed Westmere, and are based on the Nehalem microarchitecture. The brands are Core i3 for low-end systems, Core i5 for mainstream PCs and Core i7 for the highest end computers used in video editing and playing top-of-the line video games. Intel started shipping 32-nanometer processors this year, but the upcoming products are the first to cover all PC categories.

The Core i7 processors, codenamed Lynnfield for the desktop models and Clarksfield for the laptop versions, are all quad-core processors. The i5 processors are available in quad-core and dual-core models, and the i3 are only dual-core.

All of the dual-core processors have the CPU and graphics processor integrated on a single die, with the memory controller on a separate chip. Previous generations had each of the three components on a separate die. The Core i7 products, which are typically used in systems with a separate graphics card, do not have integrated graphics, which Intel now calls its HD (high-definition) Graphics. Previously, Intel called its graphics technology GMA for graphics media accelerator.

Intel says its latest graphics technology is better than the previous generation because more of the work is done on the hardware versus software. As a result, end users will see smoother, sharper and more colorful playback of Blu-ray video and DVDs. The same is true for picture-in-picture playback, according to Intel.

In addition, Intel graphics support multiple monitors and DisplayPort and Dual HDMI interfaces. The former is used to connect to monitors and home-theater systems and the latter to audio/video devices, such as Blu-ray disc players, set-top boxes and video-game consoles.

The Core i5 and i7 products will all have Intel's Turbo-Boost technology, which ratchets up processing power to meet workload bursts and then lowers it when extra horsepower is no longer needed. The technology also has what Intel calls "power-gating," which will leave idle all cores that aren't needed to accomplish particular tasks. Turbo-Boost technology in general makes processors more efficient in terms of energy use.

Intel plans to release pricing and further details on the new products at CES, which runs from Jan. 7-10 in Las Vegas, Nev.

Intel unveiled its new line the same day researcher IDC released an upbeat report on the PC market. The analyst firm said the overall market in terms of shipments returned to year-over-year growth in the third quarter after three consecutive quarters of decline. Starting next year, IDC says shipments will increase in the low double-digits through 2013.

While facing a brighter outlook for the PC industry, Intel is looking at dark clouds on the legal front. The chipmaker is dealing with increasing pressure from government agencies in and outside the U.S. that accuse the company of anti-competitive behavior. Intel's latest legal headache came this week from the Federal Trade Commission, which used the company, claiming it uses its dominance to stifle competition.

Sequential Circuits

Sequential logic differs from combinational logic in that the output of the logic device is dependent not only on the present inputs to the device, but also on past inputs; i.e., the output of a sequential logic device depends on its present internal state and the present inputs. This implies that a sequential logic device has some kind of memory of at least part of its ``history'' (i.e., its previous inputs). Below figure shows a generic structure for sequential circuit.

The memory elements are devices capable of storing binary info. The binary info stored in the memory elements at any given time defines the state of the sequential circuit. The input and the present state of the memory element determines the output. Memory elements next state is also a function of external inputs and present state. A sequential circuit is specified by a time sequence of inputs, outputs, and internal states.

There are two types of sequential circuits. Their classification depends on the timing of their signals: Synchronous sequential circuits Asynchronous sequential circuits Asynchronous sequential circuits: This is a system whose outputs depend upon the order in which its input variables change and can be affected at any instant of time. Gate-type asynchronous systems are basically combinational circuits with feedback paths. Because of the feedback among logic gates, the system may, at times, become unstable. Consequently they are not often used. Below is an example circuit.

Synchronous sequential circuits:This type of system uses storage elements called flip-flops that are employed to change their binary value only at discrete instants of time. Synchronous sequential circuits use logic gates and flip-flop storage devices. Sequential circuits have a clock signal as one of their inputs. All state transitions in such circuits occur only when the clock value is either 0 or 1 or happen at the rising or falling edges of the clock depending on the type of memory elements used in the circuit. Synchronization is achieved by a timing device called a clock pulse generator. Clock pulses are distributed throughout the system in such a way that the flip-flops are affected only with the arrival of the synchronization pulse. Synchronous sequential circuits that use clock pulses in the inputs are called clocked-sequential circuits. They are stable and their timing can easily be broken down into independent discrete steps, each of which is considered separately.

Below figure shows example circuit:

A clock signal is a periodic square wave that indefinitely switches from 0 to 1 and from 1 to 0 at fixed intervals. Clock cycle time or clock period: the time interval between two consecutive rising or falling edges of the clock.

Combinational circuits

Combinatorial Circuits are circuits which can be considered to have the following generic structure.

Whenever the same set of inputs is fed in to a combinatorial circuit, the same outputs will be generated. Such circuits are said to be stateless. Some simple combinational logic elements that we have seen in previous sections are "Gates".

Below figure shows the basic gates that are used to build a combinational circuit.

Digital Design

As i have mentioned earlier that digital design concepts has to be crystal clear while you design a digital circuit. Here we will stat with the basic concepts of digital designing.

Digital or binary logic has fascinated many people over the years. The very idea that a two-valued number system can possibly be the basis for the most powerful and sophisticated computers seems astounding, to say the least. Nevertheless, it is so, and the how and the why of this requires some explanation.

Everything in the digital world is based on the binary number system. Numerically, this involves only two symbols: 0 and 1. Logically, we can use these symbols or we can equate them with others according to the needs of the moment. Thus, when dealing with digital logic, we can specify that:

0 = false = no

1 = true = yes

Using this two-valued logic system, every statement or condition must be either "true" or "false;" it cannot be partly true and partly false. While this approach may seem limited, it actually works quite nicely, and can be expanded to express very complex relationships and interactions among any number of individual conditions.

Digital logic may be divided into two classes:

=> combinational logic, in which the logical outputs are determined by the logical function being performed and the logical input states at that particular moment. A simple combinational circuit is shown below.

=>sequential logic, in which the outputs also depend on the prior states of those outputs. Both classes of logic are used extensively in all digital computers. A Latch is considered to be a simplest sequential circuit. A simple sequential circuit is shown below.

Very Large Scale Integration

Hi everybody, before starting i would like to say that i have started this blog to share my experiences in VLSI designing which can be helpful to the students and engineers who wants to enter into one of the evergreen and royal field of electronics.

Most of the students of Electronics Engineering are exposed to Integrated Circuits (IC's) at a very basic level, involving SSI (small scale integration) circuits like logic gates or MSI (medium scale integration) circuits like multiplexers, parity encoders etc. But there is a lot bigger world out there involving miniaturization at levels so great, that a micrometer and a microsecond are literally considered huge! This is the world of VLSI - Very Large Scale Integration. The article aims at trying to introduce Electronics Engineering students to the possibilities and the work involved in this field.

VLSI stands for "Very Large Scale Integration”. This is the field which involves packing more and more logic devices into smaller and smaller areas. Thanks to VLSI, circuits that would have taken boards full space can now be put into a small space few millimeters across! This has opened up a big opportunity to do things that were not possible before. VLSI circuits are everywhere ... your computer, your car, your brand new state-of-the-art digital camera, the cell-phones, and what have you. All this involves a lot of expertise on many fronts within the same field.

A typical digital design flow is as follows:

Specification =>Architecture =>RTL Coding =>RTL Verification =>Synthesis =>Backend =>Tape Out to Foundry to get end product….a wafer with repeated number of identical Ics.

All modern digital designs start with a designer writing a hardware description of the IC (using HDL or Hardware Description Language) in Verilog/VHDL. A Verilog or VHDL program essentially describes the hardware (logic gates, Flip-Flops, counters etc) and the interconnect of the circuit blocks and the functionality. Various CAD tools are available to synthesize a circuit based on the HDL. The most widely used synthesis tools come from two CAD companies, Synposys and Cadence.

Without going into details, we can say that the VHDL can be called as the "C" of the VLSI industry. VHDL stands for "VHSIC Hardware Definition Language", where VHSIC stands for "Very High Speed Integrated Circuit". This language is used to design the circuits at a high-level, in two ways. It can either be a behavioral description, which describes what the circuit is supposed to do, or a structural description, which describes what the circuit is made of. There are other languages for describing circuits, such as Verilog, which work in a similar fashion.

Both forms of description are then used to generate a very low-level description that actually spells out how all this is to be fabricated on the silicon chips. This will result in the manufacture of the intended IC.

A typical analog design flow is as follows:

In case of analog design, the flow changes somewhat.

=>Specifications=> Architecture =>Circuit Design =>SPICE Simulation =>Layout =>Parametric Extraction / Back Annotation =>Final Design =>Tape Out to foundry.

While digital design is highly automated now, very small portion of analog design can be automated. There is a hardware description language called AHDL but is not widely used as it does not accurately give us the behavioral model of the circuit because of the complexity of the effects of parasitic on the analog behavior of the circuit. Many analog chips are what are termed as “flat” or non-hierarchical designs. This is true for small transistor count chips such as an operational amplifier, or a filter or a power management chip. For more complex analog chips such as data converters, the design is done at a transistor level, building up to a cell level, then a block level and then integrated at a chip level. Not many CAD tools are available for analog design even today and thus analog design remains a difficult art. SPICE remains the most useful simulation tool for analog as well as digital design.

From above discussion n from my personal experience i feel that digital design is the most important aspect of the VLSI design flow. Think if your design has some bug...!! the whole process then is costing billions of $. So it's very essential to take care start from the initial phase of designing.

Here during our discussion further we will go through several important concepts of digital dsigning and also see some standard designs.