Contain supply cells, power management, ring building, analog cells for TSMC N5A 1.8V IO Platform, New Frame MS add-on

Synopsys

Neel Gopalan, Synopsys

Johannes Stahl, Sr. Director, Product Marketing, Synopsys Verification Group, and Dale Donchin, Program Manager, Synopsys Corporate Security Organization

This paper outlines the most common analog video signal standard-specifications that multimedia SoCs must support. It describes the key characteristics and features of a DAC solution optimized for video applications. The paper addresses system-level techniques that together with an optimized video DAC will enable SoC designers to deliver power-efficient and feature-rich multimedia devices.

Today, cost, power, and area reduction requirements are driving the integration of analog interfaces into multimedia system-on-chips (SoCs). Among other challenges, successful implementation of modern multimedia SoCs requires a good understanding of the most relevant characteristics of analog interfaces and how they can be integrated while ensuring the transmission quality of the analog audio/video signals.

This paper elaborates on how ADCs can work with Moore's Law to move with the power and area scaling trends that are common for digital circuits. It will compare the main ADC architectures and conclude that the Successive-Approximation Register (SAR) based ADC is very well positioned as the architecture of choice for medium- and high-speed ADCs in modern SoCs, especially in 28-nm processes and beyond. It will describe implementations of the SAR ADC architecture that reduce power consumption and area usage dramatically, enabling SoC designers to successfully integrate these analog components in their next SoCs.