Structured VLSI design

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Structured VLSI design is a modular VLSI design methodology originated by Carver Mead for saving microchip area by minimizing the interconnect fabrics area. This is obtained by repetitive arrangement of rectangular macro blocks which can be interconnected using wiring by abutment. An example is partitioning the layout of an adder into a row of equal bit slices cells. In complex designs this structuring may be achieved by hierarchical nesting. Structured VLSI design has been popular in the early 1980 and lost its popularity later because of the advent of placement and routing tools wasting a lot of area by routing, which is tolerated bacause of the progress of Moore's Law. When introducing the hardware description language KARL in the mid' 1970ies the term "Structured VLSI Design" has been coined by Reiner Hartenstein (originally as "Structured LSI Design"), reminding to Edsgar Dijkstras structured programming approach by procedure nesting to avoid chaotic spaghetti-structured programms by abstaining from go to commands.

[edit] Literature

  • E. Dijkstra: Go To Statement Considered Harmful; Communications of the ACM, Vol. 11 (1968)
  • R. Hartenstein: Structured Hardware Design: a Design Language Approach; North Holland / American Elsevier, Amsterdam / New York, 1977
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