Articles on Circuit Quest

Types of Computer Memory Explained: One Map for DDR, VRAM, HBM, Cache, EEPROM, and More

Sun, 30 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

If you’ve ever tried to buy a new laptop, build a PC, or even read about the latest AI chips in the news, you’ve probably run into a complete alphabet soup. One ad boasts DDR5 and an NVMe SSD, a graphics card review goes on about GDDR7 VRAM, and an AI chip uses HBM4. To make it worse, if you play with Arduinos like I do, you get hit with Flash, SRAM, and EEPROM on a single board.

What Is an Antenna Diode and Why Do We Need It?

Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0530

An antenna diode is a protection diode placed in a digital IC to guard transistor gates against damage during the chip fabrication process. It has nothing to do with radio antennas. The name comes from the ‘antenna effect’, a phenomenon that occurs during plasma etching. Formally, this failure mode is called Plasma Induced Gate Oxide Damage.

Getting Started with Icarus Verilog and GTKWave

Sun, 12 Oct 2025 17:49:24 +0530

Icarus Verilog is one of the most popular open-source Verilog simulators, widely used for learning digital design and verifying HDL code. Combined with GTKWave, a waveform viewer, it provides a complete simulation environment. In this tutorial, we’ll install both tools and create a simple multiplexer design to demonstrate the workflow.

Getting Started with SystemVerilog using Verilator and Surfer

Sun, 12 Oct 2025 16:12:51 +0530

SystemVerilog is a powerful hardware description and verification language used in modern digital design. In this tutorial, we’ll walk through setting up a complete simulation environment using Verilator (a fast, open-source simulator) and Surfer (a modern waveform viewer), then create and simulate a simple multiplexer design.

Setting Up OpenLane using Ubuntu and Docker

Sat, 04 Oct 2025 12:16:43 +0530

OpenLane is an automated RTL to GDSII flow based on several open-source tools, enabling complete physical chip design. It uses OpenROAD, Yosys, Magic, Netgen, CVC, SPEF-Extractor, KLayout along with other scripts and flows for to take a design from RTL to GDSII. This guide walks through setting up OpenLane using Ubuntu 25.04 and Docker.