Synthesis Interview Questions

• What are the various factors that need to be considered while choosing a technology library for a design?
• When stated as 0.13μm CMOS technology, what does 0.13 represent?
• What is Synthesis?
  
• What happens when a process neither has sensitivity list nor a wait statement?
  
• Where should you declare the index that is used in a for loop? What is its visibility?
  
• What are the three weak strength values in IEEE 9 valued logic?
  
• What is the difference between a transaction and an event?
  
• What is a Moore machine? How is it different from a Mealy machine?
• Assume that variable a is integer and b is natural. When are the following statements valid?

a := a + b;
b := a + 3;

• What modeling technique will decompose designs hierarchically?
• Do variables need time queues?
  
• Does simulation time advance during delta cycles?
  
• Is it true that synthesis transformations take less time at the top abstraction levels?
  
• Is it true that synthesis transformations give refined results at the top abstraction levels?
  
• What will a well formed case statement synthesize to?
  
• What will happen to a design that is synthesized without any constraints?
  
• Explain what role the Synopsys DesignWare libraries fulfill in the synthesis process.
  
• What is the difference between a high level synthesis tool (as represented by Synopsys behavioral Compiler) versus a logic synthesis tool (as represented by Synopsys Design Compiler)?
  
• Explain what it meant for Synopsys DesignWare component to be ‘inferred’ by a synthesis tool?

• What are different power reduction techniques?
  
• How do you perform Synthesis activities in Multi vt libraries?
  
• What are the advantages of clock gating?
  
• One circuit will be given to you, where one of the inputs X have a high toggling rate in the circuit. What steps you take to reduce the power in that given circuit?
  
• You will be told to realize a Boolean equation. The next question is how efficient usage of power is achieved in that crcuit?
  
• Some circuit will be given to you and will be instructed to set certain timing exceptions commands on that particular path.
  
• What is the difference in PT timing analysis during post and pre layout designs?
  
• What you mean by FSM States?
  
• Draw the timing waveforms for the circuit given?
  
• What is Setup time and hold time effects on the circuit behavior while providing different situations?
  
• What is the difference of constraints file in Pre layout and post layout?
  
• What is SPEF? Have you used it? How you can use it?
  
• What difference you found (or can find) in the netlist and your timing behavior, while performing timing analysis in pre layout and post layout?
  
• What is clock uncertainty, clock skew and clock jitter?
  
• What is the reason for skew and jitter?
  
• What is clock tree synthesis?
  
• What are the timing related commands with respect to clock?
  
• In front end, you set ideal network conditions on certain pins/clocks etc. Why? In Back end how is it taken care?
  
• Which library you have used?
  
• What difference you (can) find in TSMC and IBM libraries?
  
• Draw the LSSD cell structure in TSMC and IBM libraries?
  
• Every tool has some drawbacks? What drawbacks you find in Prime time?
  
  
• What are the difference you find when you switch from 130nm to 90nm?
  
• Explain the basic ASIC design flow? Where your work starts from? What is your role?
• What is 90nm technology means?
  
• What are the issues you faced in your designs?
  
• Perform the setup and hold check for the given circuit.
  
• Why setup and hold required for a flop?
  
• You had any timing buffer between synthesis and P&R? How much should be the margin?
  
• What are the inputs for synthesis and timing analysis from RTL and P&R team? Whether any inputs for changing the scripts?
  
• How will you fix the setup and hold violation?
  
• What are the constraints you used for the synthesis? Who decides the constraints?
  
• What is uncertainty?
  
• What is false path and multi cycle path? Give examples? For given example for false path what you will do for timing analysis?
  
• What strategies used for the power optimization for your recent project?
  
• Why max and min capacitance required?
  
• You have two different frequency for launch (say 75Mhz) and capture (say 100Mhz).
• What will happen to data? Write the waveform? If hold problem what you will do?
  
• What is Metastability? How to overcome metastability? If metastable condition exists which frequency you will use as clock- faster or slower? Why?
  
• Have you used formality? For a given block what checks it will do? How it verifies inside the block?
  
• If you changed the port names during the synthesis how will you inform Formality?
  
• Why you use power compiler? What is clock gating? What are advantage and disadvantages of clock gating? Write the clock gating circuit? Explain.
  
• How will you control the clock gating inference for block of register? Write the command for the same?
  
• Write the total power equation? What is leakage power? Write equation for it.
  
• For clock gated flop and non clock gated flop outputs connected to a AND gate what problem can you expect? How to avoid the problem?
  
• Write the sequence detector state which detects 10? How will optimize? write the verilog code for the same?
  
• What is jitter? Why it will come? How to consider? What is the command for that?
  
• What is clock latency? How to specify? What is the command for that?
  
• What is dynamic timing analysis? What is the difference with static timing analysis? Which is accurate? Why it is accurate?
  
• Give any example for Dynamic timing analysis? Do you know anything about GCL simulation?
  
• What is free running clock?
  
• What type of operating condition you consider for post layout timing analysis?
  
• What is one-hot encoding technique? What are advantages? What are types of encoding?
  
• Which scripting language you know?
  
• How will you analysis the timing of different modes in design? How many modes you had in your design? What are the clock frequencies?
  
• What your script contains?
  
• Write the digital circuit for below condition: "when ever data changes from one to zero or zero to one the circuit should generate a pulse of one clock period length"?
  
• Have come across any design with latches? What is the problem in timing analysis if you have latch in your design?
  
• Have you come across any multiple clock design? What are the issues in multiple clock designs?
  
• What you mean by synthesis strategies?