"Let's start designing the structure first!"

Due to the reference of the new chip in Halliday's virtual game computer console, Xiao Jun is still very confident in designing a new chip. After all, there is an advanced reference in there. He doesn't need to design a chip that is comparable to a virtual game computer host, and he only needs to reach one-third of the estimated level of chips on the earth to surpass the current level of chips.

Over the years, there has been little major change in the manufacturing of chip architectures. According to the general process, the silicon wafer production process has not changed much since 199X, and the only thing that has a big impact on the chip design is the Design Rule that has increased as the MOS tube becomes smaller.

Xiao Jun spent a day summarizing what was in his head, and then sorted out a set of directions he was about to design.

Before designing, he also asked Halliday to discuss it, and the other party's design direction said that there was no problem.

In this way, Xiao Jun immediately started the road of design!

"Architecture design, the first step is to design a digital circuit diagram of the overall architecture...... Xiao Jun sat in front of the computer, opened Verilog, put his hands on the keyboard and typed quickly.

Digital circuits are generally written in Verilog, mainly because of convenience, for example, CPU-level chips, often hundreds of millions of MOS tubes, even if you draw one a second, regardless of the connection time, you have to draw 38 months.

It can be seen from here that if you want to research a chip, you don't know how much manpower, material and financial resources you need to consume!

Just a digital circuit diagram of the architecture, it says that even if you draw a MOS tube in one second, it will take 38 months!

If Xiao Jun were to design a chip by himself and complete it by himself, it was estimated that he would not be able to draw all the design drawings in 5 years!

"It's good that I have a Galaxy Butler!" Xiao Jun stopped after describing the general structure on the computer.

He didn't plan to draw the picture himself, just leave it to the Galaxy Butler completely!

"Galaxy Butler, help me draw this architecture design drawing, my current design idea is ......" Xiao Jun began to describe in detail. The Galaxy Butler began to draw according to Xiao Jun's thoughts.

In fact, Xiao Jun dictated, he didn't do it himself, but the Galaxy housekeeper did it!

An hour later.

"This digital circuit diagram is designed like this! When you encounter something you don't understand, ask me. ”

"In addition to the digital circuit diagram, you need to draw another circuit diagram, that is, the digital circuit simulation ......" After writing Verilog, of course, you have to run the digital simulation, usually using Synopsys' VCS or Mentor Graphics' MMSIM and the like.

It's a very fast simulation because every MOS tube is treated as a switch, and then some very rough analog delay is added to see if the thing you write works properly.

Balabala, Xiao Jun said for about half an hour, and then said to the Galaxy Butler: "After you get this digital simulation out, you analyze this data, calculate the parameters, and then simulate it again to see if there is any problem!"

"Yes, master!"

"After getting the above two, the next thing is - analog circuit circuit diagram! When the time comes, you use Cadence to design ......" This design diagram is more important, Xiao Jun said for 2 hours in one breath, and drank two large glasses of water.

For example, a MOS tube is a switch under the condition of a digital circuit, but in the analog circuit, according to the gate voltage and the circuit structure is different, the open circuit - large resistance - amplifier - current source - conduction various functions are completed in minutes, so the analog circuit basically has to be drawn by hand. But there is a galaxy housekeeper in Xiao Jun who doesn't need to draw by hand!

Next, after talking about the above things, Xiao Jun elaborated on the comprehensive circuit again. Synthetic power is essentially the transformation of a bunch of descriptive language into a real standard cell.

For the next week, Xiao Jun was talking to the Galaxy Butler about the requirements, specifications, and directions of the architectural design drawings he imagined.

In addition to starting to design and draw over and over again, the Galaxy Butler also stored all of Xiao Jun's words, understood, digested, and then used them.

The reason why it took Xiao Jun a week to finish the entire chip architecture design diagram is that there are too many things in it.

Analog Circuits, Digital Circuits, Design Rule Check (DRC), Area XX too small, Layout Versus Schematic check (LVS), Layout does not match Schematic......

This is only one-fifth of the design drawings of the mobile phone chip.

However, after instilling all of this into the Galaxy Butler, it also began to design these design drawings in full.

"Report to the master, I have used 10,000 computers to help you draw, and it is estimated that in half a month, I will be able to draw all the circuit diagrams of this architecture, and I can also virtually test to see if there is any problem with these design drawings!" said to Xiao Jun.

"Very good, 10,000 computers, doesn't that mean 10,000 program apes to draw pictures for me? haha...... That's a lot of money saved!" Xiao Jun grinned.

In fact, these 10,000 computers are controlled by the Galaxy Butler, and all the drawings that need to be drawn and how to draw are all drawn by the Galaxy Butler. It's just that the Galaxy Butler has divided 10,000 doppelgangers to control 10,000 computers.

But from here, it can be seen that the Galaxy Butler is really powerful!

Not only that, but when the design drawings are out, it can also simulate and test various data to see if there are any problems. If something goes wrong, you can quickly find the wrong thing and fix it!

"Now that the architecture is complete, I'm going to tell you about the design points of GUP......"

In the end, Xiao Jun finally told the Galaxy housekeeper about the signal processing design drawings and communication baseband design drawings behind this chip. As for the final Al chip, the Galaxy Butler is an artificial intelligence program.

It can be designed on its own.

All you need to do is come up with a tenth of his artificial intelligence!

"Galaxy Butler, how long will it take to get all the design drawings of this mobile phone chip?" Xiao Jun asked.

"The follow-up needs to be tested and corrected, and the final estimate will take a month!" said the Galaxy Butler.

"Very well, I am waiting for your good news. Xiao Jun nodded. After all the design drawings come out, they need to be sent to physical production, and after production, they need to be physically tested to see how the performance is. Where there will be problems, if there is a problem, the design drawings need to be modified, and then sent to the production of physical products for testing......

Anyway, no matter how short this chip is, it is estimated that it will take close to a few months to come out, or even longer!