Homework Assignment 1

Instructions

• Use the document editor of your choice to electronically generate solutions to your homework.
• Save your homework solutions as: a text (.txt), web page (.html), PostScript (.ps), Acrobat (.pdf), or Word (.doc) document
• Submit Solutions to: Electronic Homework Server (which is now on-line)

Reading

• Embedded System Design: A Unified Hardware/Software Introduction, Chapter 1 - Chapter 2.3

Homework Questions

1. Define the following terms in the context of integrated circuit design. Spell out the acronym (where needed) and provide a 1-sentance (or longer) definition. (15 pts)
   • SoC

   • ASIP

   • ASIC

   • CAD

   • NRE

   • FPGA

   • FSM

   • VHDL

   • RTL

   • bottom-up

   • top-down

   • CMOS

   • LUT

   • CLB

   • ALU

2. Suppose that your company must decide between fabricating a Million-gate custom Integrated Circuit or implementing the same logic on a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). You are given the following parameters
   • Custom IC has NRE cost of $1,510,000
   • Custom IC has a per-unit cost of $50
   • FPGA has NRE cost of $10,000
   • FPGA has a per-unit cost of $200
   Based only on the parameters above, How many devices would your company need to fabricate in order to build the custom IC with break-even cost as compared to the FPGA? Show your work. (4 pts)
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Suppose that your company is preparing to release a new System-On-Chip that has a market window of 36 months. It is projected that, during the ramp-up period of market growth, the monthly revenue for the product will will increase by $400,000 per month (starting at zero). Peak revenue for the device is projected to occur at 18 months, and decline thereafter during the ramp-down period to zero. Use the simplified revenue model described in section 1.2 of the Embedded system textbook, and discussed in the slides for lecture 1, page 16: (4 pts)
   
   
   • Compute the revenue your company should expect if the product is brought to market without delay
     
     
     
   • Compute the revenue your company should expect if the product is brought to market with 6 months of time-to-market.
     
     
     
   • Compute the revenue your company should expect if the product is brought to market with 12 months of time-to-market.
     
     
     
   • Compute the revenue your company should expect if the product is brought to market with 18 months of time-to-market.
     
     
     

4. Given that Moore's law predicted doubling of the size of a manufacturable ICs every 18 months, how many times more transistors have ICs gained over a period of 30 years? (4 pts)
   
   
   
   
   
5. Describe the limitations of Moore's law and explain why it can't hold forever. (2 pts)
   
   
   
   
6. How many transistors are required to implement a a 3-input NOR gate using a minimum number of NMOS and PMOS transitors. Explain. (2 pts).
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. Complete the table below for the following
   4-input LUT that implements the function:
   (a*b)+(b*c)+(c*d) 4 pts

   a	b	c	d	F
   0	0	0	0	___
   0	0	0	1	___
   0	0	1	0	___
   0	0	1	1	___
   0	1	0	0	___
   0	1	0	1	___
   0	1	1	0	___
   0	1	1	1	___
   1	0	0	0	___
   1	0	0	1	___
   1	0	1	0	___
   1	0	1	1	___
   1	1	0	0	___
   1	1	0	1	___
   1	1	1	0	___
   1	1	1	1	___