Design and Verification of High-Speed VLSI Physical Design

With the rapid development of deep submicron (DSM) VLSI circuit designs, many issues such as time closure and power consumption are making the physical designs more and more challenging. In this review paper we provide readers with some recent progress of the VLSI physical designs. The recent developments of floorplanning and placement, interconnect effects, modeling and delay, buffer insertion and wire sizing, circuit order reduction, power grid analysis, parasitic extraction, and clock signal distribution are briefly reviewed.

Physical Design Methodology for Godson-2G Microprocessor

The Godson-2G microprocessor is a high performance SOC which integrates a four-issue 64-bit high performance CPU core （called GS464）, a DDR2/3 controller, a HyperTransport controller, a PCI/PCI-X controller, etc. It is physically implemented in 65 nm CMOS process and reaches the frequency of 1GHz with power consumption less than 4 W. The main challenges of Godson-2G physical implementation include nanometer process technology effects, high performance design targets, and tight schedule. This paper describes the key innovative features of physical design methodology which had been used in Godson-2G physical implementation, with particular emphasis on interconnect driven floorplan generation （ICD-FP）, adapted boundary constraints design optimization （ABC-OPT）, automatic register group clock tree generation methodology （ARG-CTS）.

The Design of a Three-Dimensional Physical Modeling System for Real-Time Groundwater Flows

In the past decades,physical modeling has been widely used in hydrogeology for teaching,studying and exhibition purposes.Most of these models are used to illustrate hydrogeological profiles,but few can depict three-dimensional groundwater flows,making it impossible to validate groundwater flows simulated by numerical methods with physical modeling.

Physics design of 14 MeV neutron generator facility at the Institute for Plasma Research

A high energy and high yield neutron source is a prime requirement for technological studies related to fusion reactor development. It provides a high-energy neutron environment for small-scale fusion reactor components research and testing such as tritium breeding, shielding, plasmafacing materials, reaction cross-section data study for fusion materials, etc. Along with ITER participation, the Institute of Plasma Research, India is developing an accelerator-based 14 MeV neutron source with a yield of 10^(12)n s^(-1). The design of the source is based on the deuterium–tritium fusion reaction. The deuterium beam is accelerated and delivered to the tritium target to generate 14 MeV neutrons. The deuterium beam energy and tritium availability in the tritium target are the base parameters of the accelerator-based neutron source design. The paper gives the physics design of the neutron generator facility of the Institute for Plasma Research. It covers the requirements, design basis, and physics parameters of the neutron generator. As per the analytical results generator can produce more than 1 × 10^(12)n s^(-1)with a 110 keV D^(+) ion beam of 10 mA and a minimum 5 Ci tritium target. However, the detailed simulation with the more realistic conditions of deuteron ion interaction with the tritium titanium target shows that the desired results cannot be achieved with 110 keV. The safe limit of the ion energy should be 300 keV as per the simulation. At 300 keV ion energy and 20 mA current, it reaches 1.6 × 10^(12)n s^(-1). Moreover, it was found that to ensure sufficiently long operation time a tritium target of more than 20 Ci should be used. The scope of the neutron source is not limited to the fusion reactor research studies, it is extended to other areas such as medical radioisotopes research, semiconductor devices irradiations, and many more.

Design of Thomson Scattering Diagnostic System on EAST

Primary physical design of the Thomson scattering system for EAST, including the configuration of the system and the design considerations of different sections of the system, is presented. The expected measurability of this design, namely an electron temperature of 513 eV to 5 keV and a plasma density beyond 0.5× 10^19 m^-3, fulfills the requirements of the EAST operation.

Challenges and opportunities toward fully automated analog layout design

Realizing the layouts of analog/mixed-signal(AMS)integrated circuits(ICs)is a complicated task due to the high design flexibility and sensitive circuit performance.Compared with the advancements of digital IC layout automation,analog IC layout design is still heavily manual,which leads to a more time-consuming and error-prone process.In recent years,significant progress has been made in automated analog layout design with emerging of several open-source frameworks.This paper firstly reviews the existing state-of-the art AMS layout synthesis frameworks with focus on the different approaches and their individual challenges.We then present recent research trends and opportunities in the field.Finally,we summaries the paper with open questions and future directions for fully-automating the analog IC layout.

Recent progress on confinement of polysulfides through physical andchemical methods

With high theoretical energy density and the natural abundance of S, lithium-sulfur （Li-S） batteries areconsidered to be the promising next generation high-energy rechargeable energy storage devices. How-ever, issues including electronical insulation of S, the lithium polysulfides （LiPSs） dissolution and the shortcycle lifespan have prevented Li-S batteries from being practical applied. Feasible settlements of confiningLiPSs to reduce the loss of active substances and improve the cycle stability include wrapping sulfur withcompact layers, designing matrix with porous or hollow structures, adding adsorbents owning stronginteraction with sulfur and inserting polysulfide barriers between cathodes and separators. This reviewcategorizes them into physical and chemical confinements according to the influencing mechanism. Withfurther discussion of their merits and flaws, synergy of the physical and chemical confinement is believedto be the feasible avenue that can guide Li-S batteries to the practical application.

Influence of fault slip on mining-induced pressure and optimization ofroadway support design in fault-influenced zone

This paper presents an investigation on the characteristics of overlying strata collapse and mining-induced pressure in fault-influenced zone by employing the physical modeling in consideration of fault structure. The precursory information of fault slip during the underground mining activities is studied as well. Based on the physical modeling, the optimization of roadway support design and the field verification in fault-influenced zone are conducted. Physical modeling results show that, due to the combined effect of mining activities and fault slip, the mining-induced pressure and the extent of damaged rock masses in the fault-influenced zone are greater than those in the uninfluenced zone. The sharp increase and the succeeding stabilization of stress or steady increase in displacement can be identified as the precursory information of fault slip. Considering the larger mining-induced pressure in the fault-influenced zone, the new support design utilizing cables is proposed. The optimization of roadway support design suggests that the cables can be anchored in the stable surrounding rocks and can effectively mobilize the load bearing capacity of the stable surrounding rocks. The field observation indicates that the roadway is in good condition with the optimized roadway support design.

Designing Physics Problems with Mathematica

We envision utilizing the versatility of a Computer Algebra System, specifically Mathematica to explore designing physics problems. As a focused project, we consider for instance a thermo-mechanical-physics problem showing its development from the ground up. Following the objectives of this investigation first by applying the fundamentals of physics principles we solve the problem symbolically. Applying the solution we investigate the sensitivities of the quantities of interest for various scenarios generating feasible numeric parameters. Although a physics problem is investigated, the proposed methodology may as well be applied to other scientific fields. The codes needed for this particular project are included enabling the interested reader to duplicate the results, extend and modify them as needed to explore various extended scenarios.

Progress in Physics and Technology Developments for the Modification of JT-60

Recent progress in the physics and engineering design study for themodification programme of JT-60 is presented. In order to achieve a steady state high-βplasmaoperation, which is the dominant issue of this programme, physics design for the MHD control and thestability analysis is investigated. Engineering design and the R & D for the superconducting coils,irradiation shield are performed well towards the mission of programme.

Structural Characterization of Thin Epitaxial GaN Films on Polymer Polyimides Substrates by Ion Beam Assisted Deposition

The Epitaxial GaN thin films have been fabricated by Ion Beam Assisted Deposition (IBAD) process using nitrogen ions with hyperthermal energies on the polyimides polymer substrates. By applying with the Reflection of High-Energy Electron Diffraction (RHEED), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Quantum Design Physical Properties Measurement System, the behaviour of hexagonal GaN thin films is investigated. The result showed that the high quality of the deposited GaN layers kept appearing for many parameters depending on the temperature greatly. The behaviour of high quality of epitaxial GaN coating on the polyimide polymer substrates is a promising material for optoelectronic devices and semiconductor devices application.

Design and cold test of a rectangular cavity beam position monitor

The CBPM is a kind of monitor which is used for the measurement of beam transverse position. It is becoming increasingly popular due to its high potential in resolution performance. In theory, the resolution can reach about 1 nanometer. In this paper, a rectangular CBPM is designed for it has better X-Y isolation than a cylindrical one. It has been simulated and measured, and the results agree with each other very well. The procedures and results for the simulation and the cold test will be shown later and it will be proved that this is a reliable method for the CBPM design.

Introduction to the overall physics design of CSNS accelerators

The China Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS) is an accelerator-based facility. The accelerator of CSNS consists of a low energy linac, a Rapid Cycling Synchrotron (RCS) and two beam transport lines. The overall physics design of CSNS accelerator is described, including the design principle, the choice of the main parameters and design of each part of accelerators. The key problems of the physics design, such as beam loss and control, are also discussed. The interface between the different parts of accelerator, as well as between accelerator and target, are introduced.

Design and experiments for the waveguide to coaxial cable adapter of a cavity beam position monitor

The waveguide to coaxial cable adapter is very important to the cavity beam position monitor （CBPM） because it determines how much of the energy in the cavity could be coupled outside. In this paper, the waveguide to coaxial cable adapter of a CBPM is designed and experiments are conducted. The curve shapes of experiments and simulations are very similar and the difference in reflection is less than 0.1. This progress provides a reliable method for designing the adapter.

Implementing a 1GHz Four-Issue Out-of-Order Execution Microprocessor in a Standard Cell ASIC Methodology

This paper introduces the microarchitecture and physical implementation of the Godson-2E processor, which is a four-issue superscalar RISC processor that supports the 64-bit MIPS instruction set. The adoption of the aggressive out-of-order execution and memory hierarchy techniques help Godson-2E to achieve high performance. The Godson-2E processor has been physically designed in a 7-metal 90nm CMOS process using the cell-based methodology with some bitsliced manual placement and a number of crafted cells and macros. The processor can be run at 1GHz and achieves a SPEC CPU2000 rate higher than 500.

A hybrid multi-objective PSO algorithm with local search strategy for VLSI partitioning

Very large scale integration （VLSI） circuit par- titioning is an important problem in design automation of VLSI chips and multichip systems; it is an NP-hard combi- national optimization problem. In this paper, an effective hy- brid multi-objective partitioning algorithm, based on discrete particle swarm optimzation （DPSO） with local search strat- egy, called MDPSO-LS, is presented to solve the VLSI two- way partitioning with simultaneous cutsize and circuit delay minimization. Inspired by the physics of genetic algorithm, uniform crossover and random two-point exchange operators are designed to avoid the case of generating infeasible so- lutions. Furthermore, the phenotype sharing function of the objective space is applied to circuit partitioning to obtain a better approximation of a true Pareto front, and the theorem of Markov chains is used to prove global convergence. To improve the ability of local exploration, Fiduccia-Matteyses （FM） strategy is also applied to further improve the cutsize of each particle, and a local search strategy for improving circuit delay objective is also designed. Experiments on IS- CAS89 benchmark circuits show that the proposed algorithm is efficient.

ACO-Steiner： Ant Colony Optimization Based Rectilinear Steiner Minimal Tree Algorithm

The rectilinear Steiner minimal tree （RSMT） problem is one of the fundamental problems in physical design, especially in routing, which is known to be NP-complete. This paper presents an algorithm, called ACO-Steiner, for RSMT construction based on ant colony optimization （ACO）. An RSMT is constructed with ants＇ movements in Hanan grid, and then the constraint of Hanan grid is broken to accelerate ants＇ movements to improve the performance of the algorithm. This algorithm has been implemented on a Sun workstation with Unix operating system and the results have been compared with the fastest exact RSMT algorithm, GeoSteiner 3.1 and a recent heuristic using batched greedy triple construction （BGTC）. Experimental results show that ACO-Steiner can get a short running time and keep the high performance. Furthermore, it is Mso found that the ACO-Steiner can be easily extended to be used to some other problems, such as rectilinear Steiner minimal tree avoiding obstacles, and congestion reduction in global routing.

Crosstalk-Aware Routing Resource Assignment

Crosstalk noise is one of the emerging issues in deep sub-micrometer technology which causes many undesired effects on the circuit performance. In this paper, a Crosstalk-Aware Routing Resource Assignment (CARRA) algorithm is proposed, which integrates the routing layers and tracks to address the crosstalk noise issue during the track/layer assignment stage. The CARRA problem is formulated as a weighted bipartite matching problem and solved using the linear assignment algorithm. The crosstalk risks between nets are represented by an undirected graph and the maximum number of the concurrent crosstalk risking nets is computed as the max clique of the graph. Then the nets in each max clique are assigned to disadjacent tracks. Thus the crosstalk noise can be avoided based on the clique concept. The algorithm is tested on IBM benchmarks and the experimental results show that it can improve the final routing layout a lot with little loss of the completion rate.

Congestion-Driven Multilevel Full-Chip Routing Framework

A W-shaped multilevel full-chip routing framework using W-shaped optimization flow is used to find the final routing solution. The W-shaped flow consists of two sequential V-shaped optimization flows. The first V-shaped flow optimizes the global routing solution. The probabilistic congestion prediction technique is used to guide the global routing decision to find the routing solution that evenly distributes the nets. Then, the second V-shaped flow improves the quality of the routing result. Tests on a set of commonly used benchmark circuits and comparisons with other multilevel routing systems show that the routability, total wire length, total number of vias, and the runtime are all improved.

Simulation and experiments for the Q_ext of a cavity beam position monitor

The external Q （Qext） of the dipole mode is a key parameter of the Cavity Beam Position Monitor （CBPM）. It determines the amplitude and length of the dipole mode signal. In this paper, Qext of a CBPM whose waveguides were open to the air was simulated and measured, and the results agreed with each other. Then four waveguide-to-coaxial cable adpaters were adjusted and assembled to the CBPM, and Qext remained unchanged. This progress provides a reliable method to evaluate Qext in the physics design without simulating the structurally complex adapters.