Microarchitecture specification
Beginner
A detailed plan for one block of the chip, written by the engineers who will build it.
Novice
A detailed design document for one block: the steps data passes through, the control logic that sequences them, the storage the block needs, and what happens on each tick of the chip’s clock. Engineers write the block’s design code from it.
Expert
Written by the block owner and reviewed by architecture, verification and physical design. It covers pipeline stages, state machines, interfaces with cycle-by-cycle timing, and the register map: the numbered control and status registers software uses to drive the block. Ideally that map lives in one machine-readable file that generates the design code, the verification models and the software header files.