Questions tagged [chip-design]
Anything related to the design of integrated circuits (chips).
102 questions
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Why is silicon used to as a substrate for semiconductors? [duplicate]
Why is silicon used to as a substrate for semiconductors? Couldn't any insulator or semiconducting element be used?
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What are coils on a ESP32 die for?
On the ESP32 die (picture from Wikipedia) I see many octagonal "coils". What are they for? Is this more efficient to etch a coil on a crystal than to use an external one?
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What CMOS chips on the market implement reversible computing?
What CMOS chips currently on the market implement reversible computing (i.e., have Feynman, Toffoli, and other reversible gates)?
Vaire Computing is a recent startup seeking to do this, but according ...
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Different IC package types [closed]
What factors determine the package type of an integrated circuit (IC)?
I’ve noticed that different components come in various package types such as SOIC, DIP, DFN, and QFN. What are the key ...
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High Frequency Source Follower
In an SSF configuration set to run at 1 GHz, there are capacitors C1, C2 and resistors R1, R2. I have no idea their functions are. My guess is that it's some sort of feedback for current sink to ...
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Can consumer NPU hardware be repurposed?
Limiting this to the current generation of consumer NPU hardware going into new PCs:
Can the NPU accelerator hardware being put in recent PCs practically be repurposed for non-AI tasks? And what ...
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How do computers prevent computational errors?
Say one transistor fails and causes the entire computation to be wrong, how does a computer check to see if it is correct? My only guess is that it does it multiple times across different units. I ...
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What is the need for implementing synthesizable linked list module in RTL?
Curious to understand the use case of designing synthesizable linked list in RTL. This seems to be common in network chip designs.
Given that synthesized hardware has static memory size, what's the ...
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What is the standard procedure for analogue IC tapeout?
This is probably a very broad question and I will try to be more specific. I'm asking this question to get a sense of the gap between my knowledge and a 'successful' tapeout, as I've heard many people ...
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"Click-to-reset and hold-to-bootloader" button design scheme for an ESP32-S3 development board design
I'm trying to design a development board using an ESP32-S3 MCU. The goal is to have the boot select button act as the lone button as well as do this with a completely analog design:
When the ...
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When to have a pathway to ground in op-amp/comparator input?
When having a comparator IC, when should I put a resistor in series, to ground, or neither?
I have three examples below:
I understand ex1 may be useful to reduce offset voltage due to offset current.
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Disconnecting load circuit from reference [current mirrors]
I have started learning microelectronics design and I am currently working on my bachelor thesis. There's one thing I wanted to ask you about current mirrors and its switching.
My thesis is mainly ...
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Ethernet MAC Controller IC design process
I'm from an embedded software background, and I am trying to learn more about chip design. To this end I want to understand what goes into designing and implementing a digital IC like an ethernet ...
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What are the difficulties in making e-beam lithography common? [closed]
3D printers are common and cheap. An e-beam lithographer doesn't seem much more difficult; laying down the photoresist seems pretty similar, and drawing lines with an e-beam doesn't seem very hard. ...
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Capacitances for inverter delay calculations
In CMOS VLSI DESIGN, Neil WESTE, page 144.
"The source-to-body capacitors Csbn1 and Csbp1 have both terminals tied to constant voltages and thus do not contribute to the switching capacitance. It ...
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