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103-415: HDL may refer to one of the following: Science and technology [ edit ] Hardware description language , in computer engineering Handle System identifier (Hdl.handle.net) High-density lipoprotein , complex particles Huntington's disease-like syndromes , a family of genetic neurological diseases Other uses [ edit ] GE HDL ,

206-528: A 3 μm process . The Hitachi HM6147 chip was able to match the performance (55/70   ns access) of the Intel 2147 HMOS chip, while the HM6147 also consumed significantly less power (15   mA ) than the 2147 (110   mA). With comparable performance and much less power consumption, the twin-well CMOS process eventually overtook NMOS as the most common semiconductor manufacturing process for computers in

309-419: A 350   nm CMOS process, while Hitachi and NEC commercialized 250   nm CMOS. Hitachi introduced a 160   nm CMOS process in 1995, then Mitsubishi introduced 150   nm CMOS in 1996, and then Samsung Electronics introduced 140   nm in 1999. In 2000, Gurtej Singh Sandhu and Trung T. Doan at Micron Technology invented atomic layer deposition High-κ dielectric films , leading to

412-484: A programming language such as C or ALGOL ; it is a textual description consisting of expressions, statements and control structures. One important difference between most programming languages and HDLs is that HDLs explicitly include the notion of time. HDLs form an integral part of electronic design automation (EDA) systems, especially for complex circuits, such as application-specific integrated circuits , microprocessors , and programmable logic devices . Due to

515-475: A test bench ). At minimum, a testbench contains an instantiation of the model (called the device under test or DUT), pin/signal declarations for the model's I/O, and a clock waveform. The testbench code is event driven: the engineer writes HDL statements to implement the (testbench-generated) reset-signal, to model interface transactions (such as a host–bus read/write), and to monitor the DUT's output. An HDL simulator —

618-405: A "simulation" netlist with gate-delay information, a "handoff" netlist for post-synthesis placement and routing on a semiconductor die, or a generic industry-standard Electronic Design Interchange Format (EDIF) (for subsequent conversion to a JEDEC -format file). On the other hand, a software compiler converts the source-code listing into a microprocessor -specific object code for execution on

721-471: A 20   μm semiconductor manufacturing process before gradually scaling to a 10 μm process over the next several years. CMOS technology was initially overlooked by the American semiconductor industry in favour of NMOS, which was more powerful at the time. However, CMOS was quickly adopted and further advanced by Japanese semiconductor manufacturers due to its low power consumption, leading to

824-561: A CMOS IC chip for a Seiko quartz watch in 1969, and began mass-production with the launch of the Seiko Analog Quartz 38SQW watch in 1971. The first mass-produced CMOS consumer electronic product was the Hamilton Pulsar "Wrist Computer" digital watch, released in 1970. Due to low power consumption, CMOS logic has been widely used for calculators and watches since the 1970s. The earliest microprocessors in

927-464: A CMOS circuit. This example shows a NAND logic device drawn as a physical representation as it would be manufactured. The physical layout perspective is a "bird's eye view" of a stack of layers. The circuit is constructed on a P-type substrate. The polysilicon , diffusion, and n-well are referred to as "base layers" and are actually inserted into trenches of the P-type substrate. (See steps 1 to 6 in

1030-482: A CMOS device: P = 0.5 C V 2 f {\displaystyle P=0.5CV^{2}f} . Since most gates do not operate/switch at every clock cycle , they are often accompanied by a factor α {\displaystyle \alpha } , called the activity factor. Now, the dynamic power dissipation may be re-written as P = α C V 2 f {\displaystyle P=\alpha CV^{2}f} . A clock in

1133-443: A PMOS transistor creates low resistance between its source and drain contacts when a low gate voltage is applied and high resistance when a high gate voltage is applied. On the other hand, the composition of an NMOS transistor creates high resistance between source and drain when a low gate voltage is applied and low resistance when a high gate voltage is applied. CMOS accomplishes current reduction by complementing every nMOSFET with

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1236-401: A brief spike in power consumption and becomes a serious issue at high frequencies. The adjacent image shows what happens when an input is connected to both a PMOS transistor (top of diagram) and an NMOS transistor (bottom of diagram). Vdd is some positive voltage connected to a power supply and Vss is ground. A is the input and Q is the output. When the voltage of A is low (i.e. close to Vss),

1339-456: A close relative of CMOS. He invented complementary flip-flop and inverter circuits, but did no work in a more complex complementary logic. He was the first person able to put p-channel and n-channel TFTs in a circuit on the same substrate. Three years earlier, John T. Wallmark and Sanford M. Marcus published a variety of complex logic functions implemented as integrated circuits using JFETs , including complementary memory circuits. Frank Wanlass

1442-425: A diesel engine HDL System , HDL Universal Tactical role-playing game system produced by Tremorworks, LLC Harry Diamond Laboratories , a U.S. Army laboratory Headstone Lane railway station (National Rail station code), London, England Les Hurlements d'Léo , an alternative rock band from France Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with

1545-473: A few years, VHDL and Verilog emerged as the dominant HDLs in the electronics industry, while older and less capable HDLs gradually disappeared from use. However, VHDL and Verilog share many of the same limitations, such as being unsuitable for analog or mixed-signal circuit simulation. Specialized HDLs (such as Confluence) were introduced with the explicit goal of fixing specific limitations of Verilog and VHDL, though none were ever intended to replace them. Over

1648-620: A hardware description language. The first hardware description languages appeared in the late 1960s, looking like more traditional languages. The first that had a lasting effect was described in 1971 in C. Gordon Bell and Allen Newell's text Computer Structures . This text introduced the concept of register transfer level , first used in the ISP language to describe the behavior of the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) PDP-8 . The language became more widespread with

1751-435: A hierarchy of blocks are properly classified as netlist languages used in electric computer-aided design . HDL can be used to express designs in structural, behavioral or register-transfer-level architectures for the same circuit functionality; in the latter two cases the synthesizer decides the architecture and logic gate layout. HDLs are used to write executable specifications for hardware. A program designed to implement

1854-462: A high density of logic functions on a chip. It was primarily for this reason that CMOS became the most widely used technology to be implemented in VLSI chips. The phrase "metal–oxide–semiconductor" is a reference to the physical structure of MOS field-effect transistors , having a metal gate electrode placed on top of an oxide insulator, which in turn is on top of a semiconductor material . Aluminium

1957-494: A higher level of abstraction than simulation at the schematic level, and thus increased design capacity from hundreds of transistors to thousands. In 1986, with the support of the U.S Department of Defense, VHDL was sponsored as an IEEE standard (IEEE Std 1076), and the first IEEE-standardized version of VHDL, IEEE Std 1076-1987, was approved in December 1987. Cadence Design Systems later acquired Gateway Design Automation for

2060-431: A pMOSFET and connecting both gates and both drains together. A high voltage on the gates will cause the nMOSFET to conduct and the pMOSFET not to conduct, while a low voltage on the gates causes the reverse. This arrangement greatly reduces power consumption and heat generation. However, during the switching time, both pMOS and nMOS MOSFETs conduct briefly as the gate voltage transitions from one state to another. This induces

2163-445: A physically realizable form, the design database becomes progressively more laden with technology-specific information, which cannot be stored in a generic HDL description. Finally, an integrated circuit is manufactured or programmed for use. Essential to HDL design is the ability to simulate HDL programs. Simulation allows an HDL description of a design (called a model) to pass design verification , an important milestone that validates

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2266-449: A precise, formal description of an electronic circuit that allows for the automated analysis and simulation of the circuit. It also allows for the synthesis of an HDL description into a netlist (a specification of physical electronic components and how they are connected together), which can then be placed and routed to produce the set of masks used to create an integrated circuit . A hardware description language looks much like

2369-464: A property is a factual statement about the expected or assumed behavior of another object. Ideally, for a given HDL description, a property or properties can be proven true or false using formal mathematical methods. In practical terms, many properties cannot be proven because they occupy an unbounded solution space . However, if provided a set of operating assumptions or constraints, a property checker can prove (or disprove) certain properties by narrowing

2472-512: A rectangular piece of silicon of often between 10 and 400 mm . CMOS always uses all enhancement-mode MOSFETs (in other words, a zero gate-to-source voltage turns the transistor off). CMOS circuits are constructed in such a way that all P-type metal–oxide–semiconductor (PMOS) transistors must have either an input from the voltage source or from another PMOS transistor. Similarly, all NMOS transistors must have either an input from ground or from another NMOS transistor. The composition of

2575-450: A result of the efficiency gains realized using HDL, a majority of modern digital circuit design revolves around it. Most designs begin as a set of requirements or a high-level architectural diagram. Control and decision structures are often prototyped in flowchart applications, or entered in a editor. The process of writing the HDL description is highly dependent on the nature of the circuit and

2678-413: A small period of time in which current will find a path directly from V DD to ground, hence creating a short-circuit current , sometimes called a crowbar current. Short-circuit power dissipation increases with the rise and fall time of the transistors. This form of power consumption became significant in the 1990s as wires on chip became narrower and the long wires became more resistive. CMOS gates at

2781-426: A suite of debug tools. These allow the user to stop and restart the simulation at any time, insert simulator breakpoints (independent of the HDL code), and monitor or modify any element in the HDL model hierarchy. Modern simulators can also link the HDL environment to user-compiled libraries, through a defined PLI / VHPI interface. Linking is system-dependent ( x86 , SPARC etc. running Windows / Linux / Solaris ), as

2884-425: A system has an activity factor α=1, since it rises and falls every cycle. Most data has an activity factor of 0.1. If correct load capacitance is estimated on a node together with its activity factor, the dynamic power dissipation at that node can be calculated effectively. Since there is a finite rise/fall time for both pMOS and nMOS, during transition, for example, from off to on, both the transistors will be on for

2987-443: A trade-off for devices to become slower. To speed up designs, manufacturers have switched to constructions that have lower voltage thresholds but because of this a modern NMOS transistor with a V th of 200 mV has a significant subthreshold leakage current. Designs (e.g. desktop processors) which include vast numbers of circuits which are not actively switching still consume power because of this leakage current. Leakage power

3090-471: Is a significant portion of the total power consumed by such designs. Multi-threshold CMOS (MTCMOS), now available from foundries, is one approach to managing leakage power. With MTCMOS, high V th transistors are used when switching speed is not critical, while low V th transistors are used in speed sensitive paths. Further technology advances that use even thinner gate dielectrics have an additional leakage component because of current tunnelling through

3193-461: Is certainly possible to represent hardware semantics using traditional programming languages such as C++ , which operate on control flow semantics as opposed to data flow , although to function as such, programs must be augmented with extensive and unwieldy class libraries . Generally, however, software programming languages do not include any capability for explicitly expressing time, and thus cannot function as hardware description languages. Before

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3296-405: Is connected to V SS and an N-type n-well tap is connected to V DD to prevent latchup . CMOS logic dissipates less power than NMOS logic circuits because CMOS dissipates power only when switching ("dynamic power"). On a typical ASIC in a modern 90 nanometer process, switching the output might take 120 picoseconds, and happens once every ten nanoseconds. NMOS logic dissipates power whenever

3399-461: Is connected together in metal (illustrated in cyan coloring). Connections between metal and polysilicon or diffusion are made through contacts (illustrated as black squares). The physical layout example matches the NAND logic circuit given in the previous example. The N device is manufactured on a P-type substrate while the P device is manufactured in an N-type well (n-well). A P-type substrate "tap"

3502-432: Is growing desire in the industry for a single language that can perform some tasks of both hardware design and software programming. SystemC is an example of such— embedded system hardware can be modeled as non-detailed architectural blocks ( black boxes with modeled signal inputs and output drivers). The target application is written in C or C++ and natively compiled for the host-development system; as opposed to targeting

3605-568: Is still in its infancy, but is expected to become an integral part of the HDL design toolset. An HDL is grossly similar to a software programming language , but there are major differences. Most programming languages are inherently procedural (single-threaded), with limited syntactical and semantic support to handle concurrency . HDLs, on the other hand, resemble concurrent programming languages in their ability to model multiple parallel processes (such as flip-flops and adders ) that automatically execute independently of one another. Any change to

3708-469: Is that both low-to-high and high-to-low output transitions are fast since the (PMOS) pull-up transistors have low resistance when switched on, unlike the load resistors in NMOS logic. In addition, the output signal swings the full voltage between the low and high rails. This strong, more nearly symmetric response also makes CMOS more resistant to noise. See Logical effort for a method of calculating delay in

3811-450: Is the duality that exists between its PMOS transistors and NMOS transistors. A CMOS circuit is created to allow a path always to exist from the output to either the power source or ground. To accomplish this, the set of all paths to the voltage source must be the complement of the set of all paths to ground. This can be easily accomplished by defining one in terms of the NOT of the other. Due to

3914-518: Is used for constructing integrated circuit (IC) chips, including microprocessors , microcontrollers , memory chips (including CMOS BIOS ), and other digital logic circuits. CMOS technology is also used for analog circuits such as image sensors ( CMOS sensors ), data converters , RF circuits ( RF CMOS ), and highly integrated transceivers for many types of communication. In 1948, Bardeen and Brattain patented an insulated-gate transistor (IGFET) with an inversion layer. Bardeen's concept forms

4017-460: Is very small compared to sub threshold and tunnelling currents, so these may be neglected during power calculations. If the ratios do not match, then there might be different currents of PMOS and NMOS; this may lead to imbalance and thus improper current causes the CMOS to heat up and dissipate power unnecessarily. Furthermore, recent studies have shown that leakage power reduces due to aging effects as

4120-593: The Catapult C tools from Mentor Graphics , and the Impulse C tools from Impulse Accelerated Technologies. A similar initiative from Intel is the use of Data Parallel C++, related to SYCL , as a high-level synthesis language. Annapolis Micro Systems , Inc.'s CoreFire Design Suite and National Instruments LabVIEW FPGA provide a graphical dataflow approach to high-level design entry and languages such as SystemVerilog , SystemVHDL, and Handel-C seek to accomplish

4223-574: The Data General Eclipse MV/8000 , and commercial need began to grow for a language that could map well to them. By 1983 Data I/O introduced ABEL to fill that need. In 1985, as design shifted to VLSI, Gateway Design Automation introduced Verilog , and Intermetrics released the first completed version of the VHSIC Hardware Description Language ( VHDL ). VHDL was developed at the behest of

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4326-537: The United States Department of Defense 's Very High Speed Integrated Circuit Program (VHSIC), and was based on the Ada programming language , and on the experience gained with the earlier development of ISPS. Initially, Verilog and VHDL were used to document and simulate circuit designs already captured and described in another form (such as schematic files). HDL simulation enabled engineers to work at

4429-431: The 1970s. The Intel 5101 (1   kb SRAM ) CMOS memory chip (1974) had an access time of 800   ns , whereas the fastest NMOS chip at the time, the Intel 2147 (4   kb SRAM) HMOS memory chip (1976), had an access time of 55/70   ns. In 1978, a Hitachi research team led by Toshiaki Masuhara introduced the twin-well Hi-CMOS process, with its HM6147 (4   kb SRAM) memory chip, manufactured with

4532-488: The 1980s. In the 1980s, CMOS microprocessors overtook NMOS microprocessors. NASA 's Galileo spacecraft, sent to orbit Jupiter in 1989, used the RCA 1802 CMOS microprocessor due to low power consumption. Intel introduced a 1.5 μm process for CMOS semiconductor device fabrication in 1983. In the mid-1980s, Bijan Davari of IBM developed high-performance, low-voltage, deep sub-micron CMOS technology, which enabled

4635-466: The A or B inputs is low, one of the NMOS transistors will not conduct, one of the PMOS transistors will, and a conductive path will be established between the output and V dd (voltage source), bringing the output high. As the only configuration of the two inputs that results in a low output is when both are high, this circuit implements a NAND (NOT AND) logic gate. An advantage of CMOS over NMOS logic

4738-456: The CMOS device. Clamp diodes are included in CMOS circuits to deal with these signals. Manufacturers' data sheets specify the maximum permitted current that may flow through the diodes. Besides digital applications, CMOS technology is also used in analog applications. For example, there are CMOS operational amplifier ICs available in the market. Transmission gates may be used as analog multiplexers instead of signal relays . CMOS technology

4841-598: The HDL simulator environment, as the early stage of the design is subject to frequent and major circuit changes. An HDL description can also be prototyped and tested in hardware — programmable logic devices are often used for this purpose. Hardware prototyping is comparatively more expensive than HDL simulation, but offers a real-world view of the design. Prototyping is the best way to check interfacing against other hardware devices and hardware prototypes. Even those running on slow FPGAs offer much shorter simulation times than pure HDL simulation. Historically, design verification

4944-399: The HDL simulator and user libraries are compiled and linked outside the HDL environment. Design verification is often the most time-consuming portion of the design process, due to the disconnect between a device's functional specification , the designer's interpretation of the specification, and the imprecision of the HDL language. The majority of the initial test/debug cycle is conducted in

5047-455: The MOSFET pair is always off, the series combination draws significant power only momentarily during switching between on and off states. Consequently, CMOS devices do not produce as much waste heat as other forms of logic, like NMOS logic or transistor–transistor logic (TTL), which normally have some standing current even when not changing state. These characteristics allow CMOS to integrate

5150-450: The NMOS transistor's channel is in a high resistance state, disconnecting Vss from Q. The PMOS transistor's channel is in a low resistance state, connecting Vdd to Q. Q, therefore, registers Vdd. On the other hand, when the voltage of A is high (i.e. close to Vdd), the PMOS transistor is in a high resistance state, disconnecting Vdd from Q. The NMOS transistor is in a low resistance state, connecting Vss to Q. Now, Q registers Vss. In short,

5253-416: The PMOS transistors (top half) will conduct, and a conductive path will be established between the output and V ss (ground), bringing the output low. If both of the A and B inputs are low, then neither of the NMOS transistors will conduct, while both of the PMOS transistors will conduct, establishing a conductive path between the output and V dd (voltage source), bringing the output high. If either of

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5356-568: The abstraction level of hardware design in order to reduce the complexity of programming in HDLs, creating a sub-field called high-level synthesis . Companies such as Cadence , Synopsys and Agility Design Solutions are promoting SystemC as a way to combine high-level languages with concurrency models to allow faster design cycles for FPGAs than is possible using traditional HDLs. Approaches based on standard C or C++ (with libraries or other extensions allowing parallel programming) are found in

5459-554: The basis of CMOS technology today. The CMOS process was presented by Fairchild Semiconductor 's Frank Wanlass and Chih-Tang Sah at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in 1963. Wanlass later filed US patent 3,356,858 for CMOS circuitry and it was granted in 1967. RCA commercialized the technology with the trademark "COS-MOS" in the late 1960s, forcing other manufacturers to find another name, leading to "CMOS" becoming

5562-414: The best performance per watt each year have been CMOS static logic since 1976. As of 2019, planar CMOS technology is still the most common form of semiconductor device fabrication, but is gradually being replaced by non-planar FinFET technology, which is capable of manufacturing semiconductor nodes smaller than 20   nm . "CMOS" refers to both a particular style of digital circuitry design and

5665-428: The code is synthesized. In industry parlance, HDL design generally ends at the synthesis stage. Once the synthesis tool has mapped the HDL description into a gate netlist, the netlist is passed off to the back-end stage. Depending on the physical technology ( FPGA , ASIC gate array , ASIC standard cell ), HDLs may or may not play a significant role in the back-end flow. In general, as the design flow progresses toward

5768-412: The concept of an inversion layer, forms the basis of CMOS technology today. A new type of MOSFET logic combining both the PMOS and NMOS processes was developed, called complementary MOS (CMOS), by Chih-Tang Sah and Frank Wanlass at Fairchild. In February 1963, they published the invention in a research paper . In both the research paper and the patent filed by Wanlass, the fabrication of CMOS devices

5871-430: The corresponding supply voltage, modelling an AND. When a path consists of two transistors in parallel, either one or both of the transistors must have low resistance to connect the supply voltage to the output, modelling an OR. Shown on the right is a circuit diagram of a NAND gate in CMOS logic. If both of the A and B inputs are high, then both the NMOS transistors (bottom half of the diagram) will conduct, neither of

5974-433: The design's intended function (specification) against the code implementation in the HDL description. It also permits architectural exploration. The engineer can experiment with design choices by writing multiple variations of a base design, then comparing their behavior in simulation. Thus, simulation is critical for successful HDL design. To simulate an HDL model, an engineer writes a top-level simulation environment (called

6077-432: The designer's preference for coding style. The HDL is merely the 'capture language', often beginning with a high-level algorithmic description such as a C++ mathematical model. Designers often use scripting languages such as Perl to automatically generate repetitive circuit structures in the HDL language. Special text editors offer features for automatic indentation, syntax-dependent coloration, and macro -based expansion of

6180-433: The development of a cost-effective 90 nm CMOS process. Toshiba and Sony developed a 65 nm CMOS process in 2002, and then TSMC initiated the development of 45 nm CMOS logic in 2004. The development of pitch double patterning by Gurtej Singh Sandhu at Micron Technology led to the development of 30   nm class CMOS in the 2000s. CMOS is used in most modern LSI and VLSI devices. As of 2010, CPUs with

6283-416: The development of faster computers as well as portable computers and battery-powered handheld electronics . In 1988, Davari led an IBM team that demonstrated a high-performance 250 nanometer CMOS process. Fujitsu commercialized a 700   nm CMOS process in 1987, and then Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric , NEC and Toshiba commercialized 500   nm CMOS in 1989. In 1993, Sony commercialized

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6386-477: The device; M. O. Thurston, L. A. D'Asaro, and J. R. Ligenza who developed the diffusion processes, and H. K. Gummel and R. Lindner who characterized the device. There were originally two types of MOSFET logic, PMOS ( p-type MOS) and NMOS ( n-type MOS). Both types were developed by Frosch and Derrick in 1957 at Bell Labs. In 1948, Bardeen and Brattain patented the progenitor of MOSFET, an insulated-gate FET (IGFET) with an inversion layer. Bardeen's patent, and

6489-483: The early 1970s were PMOS processors, which initially dominated the early microprocessor industry. By the late 1970s, NMOS microprocessors had overtaken PMOS processors. CMOS microprocessors were introduced in 1975, with the Intersil 6100 , and RCA CDP 1801 . However, CMOS processors did not become dominant until the 1980s. CMOS was initially slower than NMOS logic , thus NMOS was more widely used for computers in

6592-623: The embedded CPU, which requires host-simulation of the embedded CPU or an emulated CPU. The high level of abstraction of SystemC models is well suited to early architecture exploration , as architectural modifications can be easily evaluated with little concern for signal-level implementation issues. However, the threading model used in SystemC relies on shared memory , causing the language not to handle parallel execution or low-level models well. In their level of abstraction, HDLs have been compared to assembly languages . There are attempts to raise

6695-444: The end of those resistive wires see slow input transitions. Careful design which avoids weakly driven long skinny wires reduces this effect, but crowbar power can be a substantial part of dynamic CMOS power. Parasitic transistors that are inherent in the CMOS structure may be turned on by input signals outside the normal operating range, e.g. electrostatic discharges or line reflections . The resulting latch-up may damage or destroy

6798-485: The entity/architecture/signal declaration. The HDL code then undergoes a code review, or auditing. In preparation for synthesis, the HDL description is subject to an array of automated checkers. The checkers report deviations from standardized code guidelines, identify potential ambiguous code constructs before they can cause misinterpretation, and check for common logical coding errors, such as floating ports or shorted outputs. This process aids in resolving errors before

6901-627: The exploding complexity of digital electronic circuits since the 1970s (see Moore's law ), circuit designers needed digital logic descriptions to be performed at a high level without being tied to a specific electronic technology, such as ECL , TTL or CMOS . HDLs were created to implement register-transfer level abstraction, a model of the data flow and timing of a circuit. There are two major hardware description languages: VHDL and Verilog . There are different types of description in them: "dataflow, behavioral and structural". Example of dataflow of VHDL: HDLs are standard text-based expressions of

7004-585: The extremely thin gate dielectric. Using high-κ dielectrics instead of silicon dioxide that is the conventional gate dielectric allows similar device performance, but with a thicker gate insulator, thus avoiding this current. Leakage power reduction using new material and system designs is critical to sustaining scaling of CMOS. CMOS circuits dissipate power by charging the various load capacitances (mostly gate and wire capacitance, but also drain and some source capacitances) whenever they are switched. In one complete cycle of CMOS logic, current flows from V DD to

7107-411: The family of processes used to implement that circuitry on integrated circuits (chips). CMOS circuitry dissipates less power than logic families with resistive loads. Since this advantage has increased and grown more important, CMOS processes and variants have come to dominate, thus the vast majority of modern integrated circuit manufacturing is on CMOS processes. CMOS logic consumes around one seventh

7210-522: The input. The transistors' resistances are never exactly equal to zero or infinity, so Q will never exactly equal Vss or Vdd, but Q will always be closer to Vss than A was to Vdd (or vice versa if A were close to Vss). Without this amplification, there would be a very low limit to the number of logic gates that could be chained together in series, and CMOS logic with billions of transistors would be impossible. The power supply pins for CMOS are called V DD and V SS , or V CC and Ground(GND) depending on

7313-425: The introduction of System Verilog in 2002, C++ integration with a logic simulator was one of the few ways to use object-oriented programming in hardware verification. System Verilog is the first major HDL to offer object orientation and garbage collection. Using the proper subset of hardware description language, a program called a synthesizer, or logic synthesis tool , can infer hardware logic operations from

7416-653: The introduction of DEC's PDP-16 RT-Level Modules (RTMs) and a book describing their use. At least two implementations of the basic ISP language (ISPL and ISPS) followed. ISPS was well suited to describe relations between the inputs and the outputs of the design and was quickly adopted by commercial teams at DEC, and by several research teams in the US and among its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO ). The RTM products never succeeded commercially and DEC stopped marketing them in

7519-424: The language statements and produce an equivalent netlist of generic hardware primitives to implement the specified behaviour. Synthesizers generally ignore the expression of any timing constructs in the text. Digital logic synthesizers, for example, generally use clock edges as the way to time the circuit, ignoring any timing constructs. The ability to have a synthesizable subset of the language does not itself make

7622-425: The load capacitance to charge it and then flows from the charged load capacitance (C L ) to ground during discharge. Therefore, in one complete charge/discharge cycle, a total of Q=C L V DD is thus transferred from V DD to ground. Multiply by the switching frequency on the load capacitances to get the current used, and multiply by the average voltage again to get the characteristic switching power dissipated by

7725-444: The logic based on De Morgan's laws , the PMOS transistors in parallel have corresponding NMOS transistors in series while the PMOS transistors in series have corresponding NMOS transistors in parallel. More complex logic functions such as those involving AND and OR gates require manipulating the paths between gates to represent the logic. When a path consists of two transistors in series, both transistors must have low resistance to

7828-408: The manufacturer. V DD and V SS are carryovers from conventional MOS circuits and stand for the drain and source supplies. These do not apply directly to CMOS, since both supplies are really source supplies. V CC and Ground are carryovers from TTL logic and that nomenclature has been retained with the introduction of the 54C/74C line of CMOS. An important characteristic of a CMOS circuit

7931-510: The mid-1980s, as new methods grew more popular, more so very-large-scale integration (VLSI). Separate work done about 1979 at the University of Kaiserslautern produced a language called KARL ("KAiserslautern Register Transfer Language"), which included design calculus language features supporting VLSI chip floorplanning and structured hardware design. This work was also the basis of KARL's interactive graphic sister language ABL, whose name

8034-401: The outputs of the PMOS and NMOS transistors are complementary such that when the input is low, the output is high, and when the input is high, the output is low. No matter what the input is, the output is never left floating (charge is never stored due to wire capacitance and lack of electrical drain/ground). Because of this behavior of input and output, the CMOS circuit's output is the inverse of

8137-543: The part of the designer; compared to a traditional schematic layout, synthesized RTL netlists were almost always larger in area and slower in performance . A circuit design from a skilled engineer, using labor-intensive schematic-capture/hand-layout, would almost always outperform its logically-synthesized equivalent, but the productivity advantage held by synthesis soon displaced digital schematic capture to exactly those areas that were problematic for RTL synthesis: extremely high-speed, low-power, or asynchronous circuitry. Within

8240-583: The power consumption per unit area of the chip has risen tremendously. Broadly classifying, power dissipation in CMOS circuits occurs because of two components, static and dynamic: Both NMOS and PMOS transistors have a gate–source threshold voltage (V th ), below which the current (called sub threshold current) through the device will drop exponentially. Historically, CMOS circuits operated at supply voltages much larger than their threshold voltages (V dd might have been 5 V, and V th for both NMOS and PMOS might have been 700 mV). A special type of

8343-479: The power of NMOS logic , and about 10 million times less power than bipolar transistor-transistor logic (TTL). CMOS circuits use a combination of p-type and n-type metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFETs) to implement logic gates and other digital circuits. Although CMOS logic can be implemented with discrete devices for demonstrations, commercial CMOS products are integrated circuits composed of up to billions of transistors of both types, on

8446-410: The process and emphasizing automation, reuse, and validation. CMOS Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor ( CMOS , pronounced "sea-moss ", / s iː m ɑː s / , /- ɒ s / ) is a type of metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) fabrication process that uses complementary and symmetrical pairs of p-type and n-type MOSFETs for logic functions. CMOS technology

8549-516: The process diagram below right) The contacts penetrate an insulating layer between the base layers and the first layer of metal (metal1) making a connection. The inputs to the NAND (illustrated in green color) are in polysilicon. The transistors (devices) are formed by the intersection of the polysilicon and diffusion; N diffusion for the N device & P diffusion for the P device (illustrated in salmon and yellow coloring respectively). The output ("out")

8652-416: The process's input automatically triggers an update in the simulator's process stack. Both programming languages and HDLs are processed by a compiler (often called a synthesizer in the HDL case), but with different goals. For HDLs, "compiling" refers to logic synthesis ; the process of transforming the HDL code listing into a physically realizable gate netlist . The netlist output can take any of many forms:

8755-410: The program that executes the testbench — maintains the simulator clock, which is the master reference for all events in the testbench simulation. Events occur only at the instants dictated by the testbench HDL (such as a reset-toggle coded into the testbench), or in reaction (by the model) to stimulus and triggering events. Modern HDL simulators have full-featured graphical user interfaces , complete with

8858-486: The rights to Verilog-XL, the HDL simulator that would become the de facto standard of Verilog simulators for the next decade. The introduction of logic synthesis for HDLs pushed HDLs from the background into the foreground of digital design. Synthesis tools compiled HDL source files (written in a constrained format called RTL) into a manufacturable netlist description in terms of gates and transistors . Writing synthesizable RTL files required practice and discipline on

8961-484: The rise of the Japanese semiconductor industry. Toshiba developed C MOS (Clocked CMOS), a circuit technology with lower power consumption and faster operating speed than ordinary CMOS, in 1969. Toshiba used its C MOS technology to develop a large-scale integration (LSI) chip for Sharp 's Elsi Mini LED pocket calculator , developed in 1971 and released in 1972. Suwa Seikosha (now Seiko Epson ) began developing

9064-1016: The same goal, but are aimed at making existing hardware engineers more productive, rather than making FPGAs more accessible to existing software engineers . It is also possible to design hardware modules using MATLAB and Simulink using the MathWorks HDL Coder tool or DSP Builder for Intel FPGAs or Xilinx System Generator (XSG) from Xilinx . The two most widely used and well-supported HDL varieties used in industry are Verilog and VHDL . Several projects exist for defining printed circuit board connectivity using language based, textual-entry methods. Among these, new approaches have emerged that focus on enhancing readability, reusability, and validation. These modern methodologies employ open-source design languages specifically tailored for electronics, adopting declarative markup to specify what circuits should achieve. This shift integrates software development principles into hardware design, streamlining

9167-415: The solution space. The assertions do not model circuit activity, but capture and document the designer's intent in the HDL code. In a simulation environment, the simulator evaluates all specified assertions, reporting the location and severity of any violations. In a synthesis environment, the synthesis tool usually operates with the policy of halting synthesis upon any violation. Assertion based verification

9270-632: The standard name for the technology by the early 1970s. CMOS overtook NMOS logic as the dominant MOSFET fabrication process for very large-scale integration (VLSI) chips in the 1980s, also replacing earlier transistor–transistor logic (TTL) technology. CMOS has since remained the standard fabrication process for MOSFET semiconductor devices in VLSI chips. As of 2011 , 99% of IC chips, including most digital , analog and mixed-signal ICs, were fabricated using CMOS technology. Two important characteristics of CMOS devices are high noise immunity and low static power consumption . Since one transistor of

9373-419: The structure of electronic systems and their behaviour over time. Like concurrent programming languages, HDL syntax and semantics include explicit notations for expressing concurrency . However, in contrast to most software programming languages , HDLs also include an explicit notion of time, which is a primary attribute of hardware. Languages whose only characteristic is to express circuit connectivity between

9476-455: The target microprocessor. As HDLs and programming languages borrow concepts and features from each other, the boundary between them is becoming less distinct. However, pure HDLs are unsuitable for general purpose application software development, just as general-purpose programming languages are undesirable for modeling hardware. Yet as electronic systems grow increasingly complex, and reconfigurable systems become increasingly common, there

9579-494: The title HDL . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=HDL&oldid=1205977914 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Hardware description language A hardware description language enables

9682-434: The transistor is on, because there is a current path from V dd to V ss through the load resistor and the n-type network. Static CMOS gates are very power efficient because they dissipate nearly zero power when idle. Earlier, the power consumption of CMOS devices was not the major concern while designing chips. Factors like speed and area dominated the design parameters. As the CMOS technology moved below sub-micron levels

9785-659: The transistor used in some CMOS circuits is the native transistor , with near zero threshold voltage . SiO 2 is a good insulator, but at very small thickness levels electrons can tunnel across the very thin insulation; the probability drops off exponentially with oxide thickness. Tunnelling current becomes very important for transistors below 130 nm technology with gate oxides of 20 Å or thinner. Small reverse leakage currents are formed due to formation of reverse bias between diffusion regions and wells (for e.g., p-type diffusion vs. n-well), wells and substrate (for e.g., n-well vs. p-substrate). In modern process diode leakage

9888-527: The underlying semantics of the language statements and simulate the progress of time provides the hardware designer with the ability to model a piece of hardware before it is created physically. It is this executability that gives HDLs the illusion of being programming languages , when they are more precisely classified as specification languages or modeling languages . Simulators capable of supporting discrete-event (digital) and continuous-time (analog) modeling exist, and HDLs targeted for each are available. It

9991-413: The wafer. J.R. Ligenza and W.G. Spitzer studied the mechanism of thermally grown oxides and fabricated a high quality Si/ SiO 2 stack in 1960. Following this research, Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng proposed a silicon MOS transistor in 1959 and successfully demonstrated a working MOS device with their Bell Labs team in 1960. Their team included E. E. LaBate and E. I. Povilonis who fabricated

10094-431: The years, much effort has been invested in improving HDLs. The latest iteration of Verilog, formally known as IEEE 1800-2005 SystemVerilog, introduces many new features (classes, random variables, and properties/assertions) to address the growing need for better test bench randomization, design hierarchy, and reuse. A future revision of VHDL is also in development , and is expected to match SystemVerilog's improvements. As

10197-533: Was a laborious, repetitive loop of writing and running simulation test cases against the design under test. As chip designs have grown larger and more complex, the task of design verification has grown to the point where it now dominates the schedule of a design team. Looking for ways to improve design productivity, the electronic design automation industry developed the Property Specification Language . In formal verification terms,

10300-904: Was an initialism for "A Block diagram Language". ABL was implemented in the early 1980s by the Centro Studi e Laboratori Telecomunicazioni ( CSELT ) in Torino, Italy, producing the ABLED graphic VLSI design editor. In the mid-1980s, a VLSI design framework was implemented around KARL and ABL by an international consortium funded by the Commission of the European Union. By the late 1970s, design using programmable logic devices (PLDs) became popular, although these designs were primarily limited to designing finite-state machines . The work at Data General in 1980 used these same devices to design

10403-442: Was familiar with work done by Weimer at RCA. In 1955, Carl Frosch and Lincoln Derick accidentally grew a layer of silicon dioxide over the silicon wafer, for which they observed surface passivation effects. By 1957 Frosch and Derrick, using masking and predeposition, were able to manufacture silicon dioxide transistors and showed that silicon dioxide insulated, protected silicon wafers and prevented dopants from diffusing into

10506-489: Was once used but now the material is polysilicon . Other metal gates have made a comeback with the advent of high-κ dielectric materials in the CMOS process, as announced by IBM and Intel for the 45 nanometer node and smaller sizes. The principle of complementary symmetry was first introduced by George Sziklai in 1953 who then discussed several complementary bipolar circuits. Paul Weimer , also at RCA , invented in 1962 thin-film transistor (TFT) complementary circuits,

10609-488: Was outlined, on the basis of thermal oxidation of a silicon substrate to yield a layer of silicon dioxide located between the drain contact and the source contact. CMOS was commercialised by RCA in the late 1960s. RCA adopted CMOS for the design of integrated circuits (ICs), developing CMOS circuits for an Air Force computer in 1965 and then a 288- bit CMOS SRAM memory chip in 1968. RCA also used CMOS for its 4000-series integrated circuits in 1968, starting with

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