IEEE Solid-States Circuits Magazine - Spring 2022 - 5

PRESIDENT'S CORNER
John R. Long
SSCS Educational Initiatives
P
Practicing professionals and novice
circuit designers study IEEE Journal
of Solid-State Circuits to keep current
with changes in our fast-changing
field. Conferences sponsored by the
IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS)
are another way to develop and maintain
professional skills, and most of
us are welcoming a return to in-person
conference events in 2022. Aside
from these established educational
tools, the Society is also developing
new ways of reaching out to people
interested in chip design. I'd like to
highlight two recent SSCS educational
initiatives: the Circuit Insights event
and the Platform for IC Design Outreach
(PICO).
Circuit Insights (https:///www.isscc.
org/insights) aimed to inspire students
considering circuit design as a potential
career choice. It was a one-day
virtual event for senior undergraduate
and junior graduate students,
although it was open to IEEE International
Solid-State Circuits Conference
(ISSCC) attendees as well. It was held
online before ISSCC 2022 and hosted
by the ISSCC.
The event introduced IC design
from four perspectives to inform
and educated attendees. The Industry
Perspectives forum attempted to
answer the question " Why choose a
career in circuit design? " from the
viewpoints of practitioners at Apple,
Meta, Intel, and ST. The Industry Perspectives
forum was introduced by
Daniel Friedman, who is the short
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MSSC.2022.3164813
Date of current version: 25 June 2022
course chair for ISSCC 2022. The
views of young professionals about
circuit design as a potential career
path were also explored in a " fireside
chat " format. The discussion with four
early-career engineers was moderated
by ISSCC Forums Chair Frank
O'Mahony. A " who's who " of senior
experts added their thoughts
on the " Joys of Circuit De -
sign " in a complementary
panel moderated by Naveen
Verma, the ISSCC tutorials
chair. Between panel
sessions, a select ion
of fundamental topics
in circuit design was
presented by experts
from leading academic institutions,
including Delft, Leuven, Singapore,
Stanford, Toronto, Tsinghua, Twente,
and the University of California,
Los Angeles.
It was an outstanding success,
choice.
with more than 5,000 people in
attendance. I would like to thank
all of the contributors to Circuit
Insights, organizing committee, and
operations team of the ISSCC for creating
and delivering a unique event
that resonated strongly with the students.
I'd
also like to acknowledge
Prof. Anantha Chandrakasan for proposing
an undergraduate-oriented
education event linked to the ISSCC.
Finally, a giant shout-out of thanks
to Prof. Ali Sheikholeslami for his
incredible effort to create, guide,
and deliver the Circuit Insights
event. Thank you, Ali, for all of the
hours you dedicated to make Circuit
Insights a resounding success.
If you missed it, all of the videos
from the event are available
for viewing on the SSCS YouTube
channel:
http://www.youtube.com/
Circuit Insights
aimed to
inspire students
considering
playlist?list=PLvYonHCKSWajNW-r
_u1BBTU4PabuaVh8I. By the way, our
YouTube channel is open to everyone,
so please share the Circuit Insights
playlist with your friends,
colleagues, students,
and professors.
The second educainitiative
SSCS
tional
circuit design as a
potential career
volunteers are pioneering
is PICO. The opportunity
for outreach using
open source tools and the
first open source design
kit released by SkyWater Technology
were recognized immediately by Prof.
Boris Murmann and the Solid-State
Circuit Directions Technical Committee
(SSCD-TC). The SSCD-TC was
conceived by past president Ken O
as a vehicle to bring renewed energy
and new activities into our Society.
Murmann was the first chair of the
SSCD-TC and is a driving force behind
the PICO initiative [1].
An online workshop was organized
by the SSCD-TC to gauge interest
in open source IC design. The
workshop attracted 970 attendees
with a wide range of backgrounds and
skill levels. Inspired by the success of
the workshop, Murmann established
a design contest, and the SSCS purchased
10 SkyWater CMOS test chips
(10 mm2
each) from Efabless via its
ChipIgnite program. The first four
test chips were dedicated to supporting
undergraduates and regions that
IEEE SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS MAGAZINE
SPRING 2022
5

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvYonHCKSWajNW-r_u1BBTU4PabuaVh8I http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvYonHCKSWajNW-r_u1BBTU4PabuaVh8I http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvYonHCKSWajNW-r_u1BBTU4PabuaVh8I http://https:///www.isscc.org/insights http://https:///www.isscc.org/insights

IEEE Solid-States Circuits Magazine - Spring 2022

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