IEEE Solid-States Circuits Magazine - Summer 2023 - 92

■ circuit-block schematic and simulations
(weeks 6 and 7)
■ System circuit simulation; floorplan,
and block layout (weeks 10
and 11)
■ Full-layout postlayout verification
simulations (weeks 13 and 14)
■ tape-out sign-off (week 15).
Student Groups
Student groups have two to four
students depending on project complexity,
with group members with
complementary skills.
TAs
The TAs are experienced
doctoral students who
have designed and tested
at
least one chip.
standard foundry shuttle. Recently,
access to chip fabrication is also being
democratized through the SSCS
PICO program [13], which can also
be considered.
It has been a
privilege to
Packaging
Selecting an appropriate chip package,
buying the empty packages,
and finding a packaging house
is another crucial task. We have
mostly used leaded packages (like
DIP or PLCC since they have cheap
reliable sockets that
simplify PCB assemteach
motivated
talented students
Each TA oversees three
to four designs. A key
challenge of this type
of lab course is the
large TA-to-student ratio required.
IC design and see
the smiles on their
faces when their
chips work.
bly and chip testing.
While QFN packages
are more easily available
and have lower parasitics,
sockets are very
expensive, so they need
to be soldered, making
replacing a chip or testing
multiple chips very chalWeekly
Meetings
Each team meets with their TA at
least once per week to discuss design
status, open issues, and questions.
Teams use progress-tracking
sheets that allow the TAs and instructor
to monitor closely if teams
need additional help.
Design Tools and
Process Design Kit
CAD vendors offer free educational
licenses, but the CAD infrastructure
needed for the lab course
goes beyond that of a typical IC design
course with a simulation design
project. A complete process design
kit needs to be installed on a farm of
powerful workstations that support
a dozen concurrent chip simulations
and verifications.
Silicon Fabrication
A challenging requirement is to secure
funding for the chip fabrication
and packaging as well as for
the PCBs and components. Originally,
we received fabrication support
from MOSIS, but since 2022,
we have had industrial sponsorship
to pay for the fabrication on a
92 SUMMER 2023
lenging. For low-frequency designs,
small custom surfboards for QFNs
can be used.
PCB Design
Access to PCBs and PCB design tools
has become easy and affordable.
Students are encouraged to design
two-layer PCBs to facilitate debugging.
Surface-mount components are
unavoidable nowadays, but using
larger sizes simplifies assembly.
The PCB surrounds the chip with
the necessary sensors, output
devices, and support circuitry to
demonstrate its application. Many
PCBs include microcontrollers or
FPGAs, which students are very familiar
with through platforms
like Arduino.
Measurements
An important consideration in the
project definition is the required testing
equipment. The template projects
can be thoroughly tested with the
analog and digital signal sources,
LCR meters, multimeters, and oscilloscopes
available in a typical electrical
engineering undergraduate teaching
lab. More advanced projects might
require access to spectrum analyzers
or network analyzers, which are
IEEE SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS MAGAZINE
available in research groups. Alternatively,
USB-based mixed-signal instruments
(like, e.g., the ADALM2000
[14]) have become more affordable
for the frequency ranges that
projects target.
the
Course in the Context
of an IC Curriculum
To discuss the integration of the
lab course in the IC design curriculum,
we use the course offerings at
Columbia University [15] as an example.
The prerequisite courses are
senior/graduate courses in analog
and digital design taken typically in
the first fall semester of an M.S. program.
" ELEN 4312 Analog Electronic
Circuits " builds on basic knowledge
of semiconductor devices and onetransistor
circuits to arrive at the
design of a two-stage Miller-compensated
OTA, covering feedback
and exposing students to schematic
design and simulation with a project.
" EECS 4312 Digital VLSI " covers
transistor-level digital design culminating
in a project designing a small
microprocessor; beyond schematic
entry and simulation, students do
layout, extraction, and verification.
Students also take advanced IC
design classes concurrently so that
their student design skills improve
significantly as the semester progresses,
which benefits the chip tape-outs.
" ELEN 4314 Communication Circuits "
teaches nonlinear analog circuits for
communications. " ELEN 6312 Advanced
Analog ICs " covers advanced
opamp design, including noise and
mismatch. " EECS 6321 Advanced
Digital Electronic Circuits " includes
automatic place and route and timing
verification. " ELEN 6316 AnalogDigital
Interfaces " teaches a variety
of ADC and DAC techniques. Often,
final course projects in those classes
become an integral part of the chip
tape-out.
Student Learning Experience
The VLSI Design Lab offers students
a unique learning experience. Even
though it requires significantly
more effort than an average course,
students invariably express their
IEEE Solid-States Circuits Magazine - Summer 2023

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