Developing VLSI Curricula in Electrical and Computer Engineering Department
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Authors
Xiong, Xingguo
Bajwa, Hassan
Zhang, Linfeng
Hu, Junling
Issue Date
2010
Type
Article
Language
en_US
Keywords
Engineering , Very-large-scale integration (VLSI) , Engineering education
Alternative Title
Abstract
VLSI (Very Large Scale Integrated Circuits) technology has enabled the information technology revolution which greatly changed the life style of human society. Computers, internet, cellphones, digital cameras/camcorders and many other consumer electronic products are powered by VLSI technology. In the past decades, the VLSI industry was constantly driven by the miniaturization of transistors. As governed by Moore’s law, the number of transistors in the same chip area has been doubled every 12 to 18 months. Nowadays, a typical VLSI CPU chip can contain millions to billions of transistors. As a result, the design of VLSI system is becoming more and more complex. Various EDA tools must be used to help the design of modern VLSI chips. The semiconductor and VLSI industry remain strong needs for VLSI engineers each year. In this paper, efforts in developing systematic VLSI curricula in Electrical and Computer Engineering department have been proposed. The goal of the curricula is to prepare students to satisfy the growing demands of VLSI industry as well as the higher education/research institutions. Modern VLSI design needs a thorough understanding about VLSI in device, gate, module and system levels. We developed CPEG/EE 448D: Introduction to VLSI to give students a comprehensive introduction about digital VLSI design and analysis. In this course, various EDA tools (such as Mentor Graphics tools, Cadence PSPICE, Synopsys) are used in the course projects to help students practice the VLSI design. In addition, analog and mixed signal circuit design are becoming more and more important as MEMS (Microelectromechanical Systems) and Nano devices are integrated with VLSI into Systemon-Chip (SoC) design. We developed CPEG/EE 458: Analog VLSI to introduce the analog and mixed signal VLSI design. As portable electronics (e.g. laptops, cellphones, PDAs, digital cameras) becoming more and more popular, low power VLSI circuit design is becoming a hot field. We developed CPEG/EE 548: Low Power VLSI Circuit Design to introduce various low power techniques to reduce the power consumption of VLSI circuits. Nowadays the VLSI circuits can contain billions of transistors, the testing of such complex system becoming more and more challenging. We developed CPEG/EE 549: VLSI Testing to introduce various VLSI testing strategies for modern VLSI design. In addition to the design and testing, we also developed EE 448: Microelectronic Fabrication to introduce the fabrication processes of modern VLSI circuits. With such a series of VLSI related curricula, students have an opportunity to learn comprehensive knowledge and hands-on experience about VLSI circuit design, testing, fabrication and EDA tools. Students demonstrate tremendous interests in the VLSI field, and all the VLSI courses are generally oversubscripted by students in the early stage of enrollment. Many students are also doing the VLSI graduate research and published various papers/posters in the VLSI related journals/conferences.
Description
© ASEE 2010
Citation
Publisher
ASEE