Traditionally VLSI design involved designing separate chips for CPU/processor, memory and controllers, IO controllers, interrupt controllers, co-processors, etc and all of them were integrated on a PCB to build a complete system.

Thanks to Moore’s law and advancement in technology, it is now possible to integrate most of these components into a single chip. Most of current VLSI designs follow this trend - commonly known as SOC (System on Chip) designs.

The heart of all these SOC designs is one or more processor cores - general purpose cores or micro controllers or a DSP or some other from - that can execute a program.

This holds true whether you are designing a chip for any application/markets like mobile/wireless/communication/enterprise/IoT/computing/AI or anything else.

Hence as a VLSI design engineer it is increasingly important to understand computer architecture concepts.

If you are a VLSI front end architect/microarchitect/RTL designer, you need to understand how the Software is going to interface your hardware design , how the processor core/subsystem interfaces with your other design blocks and several other design features for low power, performance and debug.

If you are a VLSI front end verification/validation engineer, you need to understand the processor architecture to create efficient stimulus to verify/validate the SOC design that includes the processor subsystem and interfaces with other design blocks. You will have to write software programs or instruction sequences to exercise the entire design as part of verification/validation.

For more read - Blogs - Verification Excellence