Application of silicon compilation techniques to a robot controller design

Abstract

The very high level of integration possible with today's integrated circuits technology and the availability of powerful IC CAD tools have created tremendous possibilities for developing electronic systems hitherto considered impractical or not cost-effective. In this thesis we present the design methodologies, architecture, and circuit designs used for applying silicon compilation techniques to design problems requiring custom IC solutions. Our approach for rapidly generating application specific ICs is based on a pre-defined architecture model of a processor. This model consists of a powerful, generic control unit integrated with application specific data paths and associated local memories. The design of the processor is composed of highly modular and parameterized macrocells hierarchically assembled together according to descriptions in a set of structural description files. The actual generation of a customized version of the processor's layout is performed by a silicon compiler package, beginning with a high-level description of the algorithm being implemented. We successfully applied the design methodologies, architecture, and circuits developed in this project for automatically generating a custom processor that implements an adaptive control algorithm for a two-axis robot arm. The chip has been fabricated in 2 micron SCMOS technology. Tests show the chip can operate at up to 15 MHz with a power consumption of 200 milliwatts. We believe our techniques provide a very viable approach for rapid and cost-effective realization of application specific ICs.