Hi, I was just wondering if professional CPU designers (like the guys at AMD and Intel) would typical mostly work on the logic gate level or on the lower CMOS transistor/ circuit level when designing CPU's? Also, what kind of role do HDLs play in CPU design, it it moslty for logic verification or is it also synthesised for actual use in the final circuit?
Bear in mind I'm speaking of professional CPU design, not hobbyist etc...
Thanks
You can see how it's done at the OpenSparc project.
The entire HDL source is GPL'd
Cheers
PeteS
It's all done in HDL (VHDL/VERILOG), but with manual intervention at the place & route stage to optimize the critical paths. You can skip the manual optimization, but your max. clock drops by about 40% or so.
Some places use SystemC for design verification.
Kind regards,
Iwo
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