Games / Command flash cards / PD fundamentals

PD fundamentals concepts, tied to the open tools

Choose a section to drill, or play every section mixed together. Each section lists the commands it covers, and any kinds of card it holds besides the plain one: a command whose meaning you pick.

SourceThese cards cover the reasoning behind physical design rather than any tool's interface: how a timing check is formed, what skew and variation do to it, and what the physical effects cost. Where an idea can be observed in the open flow, the explanation names the command that shows it, and the answer links to its documentation. Reference: the OpenSTA command reference (the open flow on GitHub).

All sections

A mixed round drawn from every section. Due cards come first, then new cards in random order.

81cards across 9 sections

mixed round play

Timing basics

How a check is formed, and what slack actually measures.

setupholdslackarrivalrequiredcritical-pathlaunchcapture

Clocking

Latency, skew, jitter, and what they do to the two checks.

latencyskewjitteruncertaintyuseful-skewclock-gatingCDC

Variation and corners

Why one analysis is never enough, and how pessimism is managed.

cornersOCVderatingCRPRMCMMaging

Signal integrity

What neighbouring wires do to a net's delay and its logic value.

crosstalkdelta-delaynoiseshieldingNDRcoupling

Power and current

Where the power goes, and what the current does to the supply.

dynamic-powerleakageIR-dropelectromigrationdecapclock-gating

Physical effects

Wires, loads, and the quantities that make a layout hard.

wire-delayfanoututilizationcongestionbufferingfloorplan

Test concepts

Why a chip needs test logic, and what it costs the physical design.

scancontrollabilityobservabilityATPGstuck-atat-speedscan-reorder

Interfaces and budgeting

Timing at a block's edge, and what a block's model hides from the level above.

input-delayoutput-delaysource-synchronousbudgetILMfeedthrough

Flow reasoning

Why the flow has the shape it does, and what each stage can still change.

flat-vs-hierarchicalabstractECOclosuretiming-model