Welcome to the VLSI Design class at Rice University - Fall 1996
Elec 442 at Rice is designed to impart to the students the
theory and application
of VLSI design. The course includes a design project,
where students design original circuits based on the material learned
in class. The chips will be fabricated by MOSIS, and tested in the next
class in this series, Elec 423 (VLSI II).
Projects for Fall 1996:
The projects fall into one of two categories: Calculator/ALU,
where functionality and performance is stressed, or a mini-CPU, where the
building blocks and instruction set are simple, and the emphasis is on
systems description and inter-operation of system components. The following is
the list of projects from Fall 1996.
ALU/Calculators:
Mini-CPU's:
The topics covered in this course include:
- Overview of combinational Logic and minimization
- Sequential logic and Finite State Machines
- Overview of semiconductor physics
- PMOS and NMOS transistors
- CMOS fabrication technology (crystal growth, wafers, lithography, masks, doping, etc.)
- Layout, design rules, stick diagrams
- The latch-up effect, prevention, well contacts
- Common structures (gates, compound gates, latches, shifters, PLA's)
- Clocking strategies, 2-phase non-overlapping clock, Karplus methodology
- Design Process - hierarchical design (regularity, modularity, locality)
- Design verification tools (simulators, netlist comparators, DRC checkers, etc.)
- MOS equations, second-order effects.
- Biasing, AC and DC characteristics, load lines
- Circuit parameters, parameter extraction
- Timing, power, and size tradeoffs
- Other CMOS structures: dynamic CMOS, pseudo NMOS, BiCMOS
- Introduction to testing and testability
- Analog CMOS
About the VLSI Design class in
Fall 1995 (last year)
Aria Nosratinia
Last modified: 2 September 1997