28th Annual Simulation Symposium Special purpose array processor for digital logic simulation Santa Barbara, California April 25-April 28 ISBN: 0-8186-7091-6
Digital logic and fault simulation of large VLSI circuits is one of the most compute-intensive tasks in digital analysis. This paper describes a special purpose time driven array processor for digital logic simulation. The new architecture uses a massively parallel processing element (PE) array in a SIMD architecture. Compiled event-driven technology and nominal transport delay timing analysis are used. A circuit to be simulated is levelized according to the delay time order at the preprocessing stage and the levelized circuit is mapped into a massively parallel PE array. Circuit comparisons show that the speedup of the new architecture is up to 8 times faster than the MARS accelerator and it can be higher for increased circuit size; while the hardware cost remains low.
Index Terms:
special purpose computers; circuit analysis computing; VLSI; parallel architectures; timing; delays; logic CAD; digital simulation; special purpose array processor; digital logic simulation; fault simulation; large VLSI circuits; compute-intensive tasks; digital analysis; time driven array processor; massively parallel processing element; SIMD architecture; compiled event-driven technology; nominal transport delay timing analysis; delay time order; levelized circuit; massively parallel PE array; MARS accelerator; hardware cost
Citation:
Youngmin Hur, S.A. Szygenda, "Special purpose array processor for digital logic simulation," ss, pp.297, 28th Annual Simulation Symposium, 1995 Usage of this product signifies your acceptance of the Terms of Use. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||