Digital VLSI Simulation
1. The group of gates whose names begin with "V_" are intended to
emulate digital CMOS transistors and structures in the Digital LOG
simulator. Naturally they are not as accurate a simulation as
AnaLOG's transistors, but they have the advantages that the digital
simulator is much faster, and that they can be used in combination
with all the other digital gates in the library.
2. The basic VLSI gates are V_NFET and V_PFET, the CMOS transistors.
These gates can model most digital CMOS circuits which do not
involve charge sharing or other "analog" effects. The transistors'
gate pins have "capacitance" which holds the last charge stored on
them, allowing you to build dynamic as well as static registers.
The transistors are symmetric: You don't have to worry about which
end is the source and which is the drain.
3. V_NFET conducts zeros between its source and drain pins whenever its
gate pin is one. It does not conduct logic ones at all. Similarly,
V_PFET conducts logic ones when its gate is zero. In other words,
V_NFET and V_PFET act just like CMOS transistors, as far as most
digital applications are concerned, and that's all you need to know.
If you are interested in a detailed understanding of how the CMOS
simulation works in LOG, read the following few paragraphs.
4. Because Digital LOG is a gate-level simulator, it needs to know at
any given time which pins are "inputs" and which are "outputs".
Since transistors are symmetrical devices which can conduct in
either direction, the V_NFET and V_PFET gates are implemented as
bidirectional buffers which can change their direction of transfer
according to their environment. Specifically, any time a V_NFET
sees a zero on its output, and an undriven node on its input, it
changes direction so that it can conduct the zero onto the undriven
node. This change of direction occurs only if the gate is switched
on. Likewise, the V_PFET switches direction in order to conduct a
one onto an undriven node. In most circuits, this all happens
automatically and you can ignore it. But if a particular V_NFET or
V_PFET looks like it is getting confused, you might swap it for a
V_NFETD or V_PFETD (described below).
5. The "gate capacitance" is implemented by driving a "weak" one or
zero onto the gate, according to the last "strong" value seen there.
A weak one or zero is the kind of signal produced by a TIE (resistor
to Vdd) or TIEGND (resistor to Gnd) gate. If another circuit drives
an actual value onto the gate, this strong value overrides the weak
"capacitative" value. To avoid undesirable charge-sharing problems,
the sources and drains of transistors treat weakly driven ones or
zeros as if they were undriven. This means, for example, that a
value stored dynamically on the gate of a transistor will not leak
back through any "pass" transistors connected to that gate.
6. There are also "directional" transistors, V_NFETD and V_PFETD.
These gates are similar to V_NFET and V_PFET, respectively, except
that they conduct in a fixed direction. Information is always
propagated *from* the pin with the arrow, *to* the other pin. In
terms of current, the directions of the arrows show the direction of
current flow.
7. Finally, there are V_NFETX and V_PFETX. They are directional
transistors that do not "weakly" drive their gates to show the
dynamically stored value there. Instead, they record the value in
a hidden internal state variable in the transistor. V_NFETX and
V_PFETX are provided as a minimal-frills transistor, in case the
fancier transistors are too "smart" to work properly in your
circuit. Also, since the programs for V_NFETX and V_PFETX are
simple they will simulate faster, especially in hierarchical
designs.
8. V_NFETX and V_PFETX can pass weakly driven signals as well as
strongly driven ones. As a result, you can use them to simulate
NMOS circuits. Use V_NFETX for enhancement devices, and the
standard TIE gate as a depletion (pull-up) device. The fancier
transistors will not work in this way because the the weak one from
the TIE gate will not be able to overpower the weak one or zero
being driven by the transistor's capacitance.
9. The following additional gates are provided in the VLSI library:
V_BUF VLSI buffer. This gate acts like a non-inverting
buffer made out of V_NFETX and V_PFETX transistors. That
is, it does not affect its input pin in any way, but the
output pin gets a copy of the most recently driven input
value. You can use V_BUF to get a visible indication of
what value is stored on the hidden gate capacitances of
V_NFETX's and V_PFETX's on the same wire.
V_INV VLSI inverter. This gate acts like a usual digital
inverter. The difference between V_INV and the standard
INV gate is that V_INV's input is dynamic in the same way
as the V_NFET and V_PFET transistors' gates. V_INV
weakly drives its input according to the capacitively
stored value. It is provided simply as a shorthand to
drawing the two transistors.
V_AND, V_OR, V_NAND, V_NOR
VLSI AND, OR, NAND, and NOR gates. These gates have
capacitive inputs, just as in V_INV.
V_TRANS, V_TRANSN
CMOS transmission gates (with active-high or active-low
control). These gates act much like V_NFET's and
V_PFET's connected together to form the traditional CMOS
"pass" gate. They require only a single control input,
generating the inverted control signal internally. For
V_TRANS, the gate conducts ones or zeros in either
direction whenever the control is one, and is an open
circuit when the control is zero. For V_TRANSN, the gate
conducts only when the control is zero. If the gates get
confused and you need a directional transmission gate,
you can use the 74125 and 74126 "tri-state buffer" gates
from the library.
V_CSRL Complementary Set-Reset Logic element. This is a one-bit
latch designed to emulate a CSRL gate. If the "latch"
input is high, then a zero on the upper data input clears
the latch and a zero on the lower data input sets the
latch. If the latch input is low, or if both data inputs
are high or undriven, the latch remembers its previous
value. The result is undefined if the latch is high and
both data inputs are low. The latched value and its
complement are driven on the outputs.
V_CSRL0 To get a complete two-phase master-slave flip-flop,
connect two V_CSRL's in series. The V_CSRL0 gate is
electrically equivalent to V_CSRL, but with the control
pin in a different place so that parallel "phase 1" and
"phase 2" clock busses can be used.
V_CSRL2 Two-bit parallel CSRL latch.
V_CSRL4 Four-bit parallel CSRL latch.
V_CSRLN CSRL latch with active-low control.
- Email
- lazzaro@cs.berkeley.edu
- Phone
- (510) 643 4005
- SMail
- UC Berkeley / CS Division / 387 Soda Hall / Berkeley CA 94720