Understanding Physical Design

 What is Physical Design?

Physical design is the process of transforming a design into a manufacturable commodity.

This stage begins with the synthesis of netlist (Verilog file) which is converted into GDSII (Geometrical data base standard for information interchange). In other words the logical connectivity of cells is converted into physical connectivity.

Why is Physical Design necessary?

This process is vital as it not only maintains the continuity of the ASIC design but also helps in improving the Performance, Power, Area of a system.

Physical Design constraints: 

• Performance : If there are long routes/connections present in a design, it results to longer signal delays. 
• Power: Transistors with smaller gate length tend to reach greater switching speeds at the cost of higher leakage current & manufacturing variability.
• Area: If connected modules inside a chip are placed far, it results in larger & in turn slower chips.

Scope of Physical Design

With the onset of the pandemic, the global world saw a rise in demand for electronic chips. Take for example the gaming console PS5. Due to severe demand from the gaming community as well as budding gamers who wanted this device, PS5 was soon out of stock after it's release. Ford had to queue the production of 60,000 cars because of scarcity of chips. Same with Tesla, Skoda and other automobiles. To balance and to meet the needs of all the people, the next 10 - 15 years will see a lot of demand for VLSI engineers. Since this is a niche skill and the complexity involved here is high, there is not only great demand but the PayScale is also often very high.

 

       

Top Companies for Physical Design Engineer

• Qualcomm
• Intel
• Samsung
• Nvidia
• AMD
• Texas Instruments