CHAPTER STRUCTURED DIGITAL CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS 9.0 INTRODUCTION The purpose of Chapter 7 on basic digital building blocks was to introduce prim- itive logic gates and provide insight into features and limitations of digital MOS circuitry. The goal of this chapter is to extend that knowledge to the design of larger digital systems. These digital systems comprise many logic gates and may occupy a significant part of an integrated circuit chip. Such systems almost always consist of carefully repeated building blocks, with each block based on circuits such as those discussed in Chapter 7. Several different structures, including reg- ular logic arrays, clocked structures, memories, microprocessors, and systolic arrays, are used to demonstrate the capabilities and design requirements for digital integrated circuits and systems. This chapter begins with an examination of the general topic of structured logic forms. This includes a comparison of random versus structured logic forms, treatment of programmable logic arrays (PLAs), Weinberger arrays, gate-matrix design, and logic gate arrays. These are alternate forms used to implement combi- national logic in a structured manner while maintaining control over layout area. Clocking schemes are introduced next. Time-based signals called clocks are required to provide time order in the operation of digital circuits. In particular, clocks augment simple combinational logic to create sequential systems such as controllers or microprocessors. Following the section on clocking schemes, simple dynamic storage is discussed, a prerequisite for the subsequent treatment of clocked logic, including domino CMOS. Dynamic storage is also useful in building finite-state machines, which are described later in the chapter. 778STRUCTURED DIGITAL CIRCUITS AND systems 779 The next sections provide descriptions of several forms of memory including ROM, EPROM, SRAM, DRAM, and static and quasi-static register storage. The first four of these are introduced from a conceptual viewpoint rather than a circuit design viewpoint. The internal design of dense memory subsystems requires detailed circuit design and is outside the scope of this chapter. With the prerequisites of combinational logic, clocking schemes, and mem- ory available, increasingly complex digital systems such as controllers, finite- state machines, microprocessors, and systolic arrays are outlined. This final major area of the chapter provides an introduction to several practical examples of the complex digital systems that are created from an orderly composition of relatively simple digital building blocks. 9.1 RANDOM LOGIC VERSUS STRUCTURED LOGIC FORMS A digital logic function may be realized as random logic or as structured logic. The term random logic describes a particular style (or lack thereof) of digital logic design. Some integrated logic circuits are placed within a layout in much the same way that small-scale logic chips are placed on a wire-wrap circuit board and then interconnected. With the many types of small-scale logic functions required, and because particular types of small-scale logic functions may be needed at irregu- lar places within a circuit, the circuit packages and their interconnection wiring sometimes appear to have been randomly placed. Of course, for the circuit to function properly, the interconnections, and probably the package placement, were carefully designed. Nevertheless, random logic is a tag commonly used to describe digital circuits that lack regularity of circuit function, placement, and interconnection. On the other hand, structured logic is the term used to character- ize logic forms that do demonstrate regularity in their layout and interconnection. Many digital integrated circuits in the past were designed with large areas devoted to random logic. Early microprocessors such as the Intel 8080 and the Motorola 6800 each contained large sections of random logic. Examination of the die photo of Fig. 9.1-1 reveals that about 50% of the area for the Motorola 6809 microprocessor is devoted to random logic. Designs of this type were considered to have advantages of efficient use of silicon area and potentially fast operation. They have significant disadvantages caused by lengthy integrated circuit layout times, difficulty of testing, and costly modification steps. Other digital integrated circuits have been designed with highly structured layouts for many years. Most notable among these are all forms of memory chips. Memory chips, such as the IM-bit dynamic RAM (DRAM) from Texas Instruments shown in Fig. 9.1-2, are composed of many identical memory cells and are naturally structured as regular arrays of these cells. Because of the potential sales volume for memory parts, considerable effort is expended in reducing the size of the basic memory cell, causing memory chips to be among the densest of all integrated circuits. Most of the newer, large digital integrated circuits, such as the Motorola 68030 and the Intel 80386 microprocessors, have decreased substantially the780 VLSI DESIGN TECHNIQUES FOR ANALOG AND DIGITAL CIRCUITS FIGURE 9.1-1 Die photo for Motorola 6809 microprocessor (Courtesy Motorola Inc.). percentage of silicon area devoted to random logic. This is easily shown by comparing the die photo of the Motorola 68030 of Fig. 9.1-3 with the die photo of Fig. 9.1-1. In fact, because of the complexity of many new chips, random logic design is no longer feasible for large chips. The length of time to design and lay out a complex random logic chip would increase the cost of the chip prohibitively. It would also delay introduction of the chip to the market, a costly consideration. As a result, most new digital integrated circuits increasingly use structured logic forms such as PLAs, microprogram ROMs, data paths, gate arrays, and standard cells to displace random logic design. A widely used measure introduced by Lattin in 1979! is helpful in describing the regularity of an integrated circuit design. This measure, called the chip regularity factor, is defined as the ratio of the total number of transistors on the