any circuit designers in house? Real world examples of synthesis in circuit design?

LordSnailz

Diamond Member
Nov 2, 1999
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I know there are some circuit designers in ATOT ... hope I can get some insight on this.

I'm interviewing for a circuit design synthesis position, I think I have my circuit design stuff down(optimizing for delay, power, area, etc), but it's the synthesis/verilog portion that I'm iffy about.

I'm wondering if you guys can provide some examples on how you use synthesis on a design problem.

thanks in adv.
 

TuxDave

Lifer
Oct 8, 2002
10,571
3
71
When restricted to using FPGAs, I believe synthesis is heavily used to minimize the usage of available resources. Where I am where everything is custom, synthesis is restricted to blocks of low risk in terms of power and performance.
 

theeedude

Lifer
Feb 5, 2006
35,787
6,197
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Originally posted by: LordSnailz
I know there are some circuit designers in ATOT ... hope I can get some insight on this.

I'm interviewing for a circuit design synthesis position, I think I have my circuit design stuff down(optimizing for delay, power, area, etc), but it's the synthesis/verilog portion that I'm iffy about.

I'm wondering if you guys can provide some examples on how you use synthesis on a design problem.

thanks in adv.

There is a lot of random logic like control or state machines that is synthesized, while more structured and critical logic like datapaths, register files, or adders is custom or semi-custom designed. Synthesized logic is generally less area efficient and slower than custom designed one, but you need to focus your designer energy on critical blocks with the biggest payoff, and things where it's not a big difference or it's way too random without much replication, or it changes too often, it's better to synthesize.
 

slpaulson

Diamond Member
Jun 5, 2000
4,414
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Also you need to remember methods of writing verilog that will synthesize into something decent.

Also a lot of times post-synthesis circuits won't match your functional simulations.