IC Design & Flow Overview

A System on Chip (SoC) is an integrated circuit that integrates all components of an electronic systems. It may contain digital, analog, mixed-signal, and radio-frequency modules—all on a single substrate. SoCs are very common in the mobile computing market because of their low power-consumption

SoC designs usually consume less power and have a lower cost and higher reliability than the multi-chip systems that they replace. And with fewer packages in the system, assembly costs are reduced as well.

Advantages of SoC

1. Compact system size (Chip size is very less compared to board size)
2. Less power consumption (Less components, less IOs, less passive components helps to reduce power)
3. High performance
4. Less system cost

PCB – SoC

SiP (System in Package)

Advantages

1. Developing cost will be less
2. Faster turn around time (Development time will be less)
3. Different technology chips can be mounted in same package
4. Yield will be increased, as individual chip size are small

General CHIP design flow

All semicon giants follow a robust SoC/IC design flow, to get reduce the TTM in this competitive market. Development cost of any SoC/IC is very high & hence every one targets for first pass silicon. A successful chip is not enough, it has to meet many criteria like Power, Performance, Area, Schedule (PPAS), Yield, Cost. All these can be achieved with systematic, flawless flow.

A general IC design flow is shown in the figure.

Detailed IC Design Flow