Intro

Welcome to the home page of EE6350 VLSI Design Lab for Spring 2024.

This graduate course focuses on the design, simulation, layout, verification and tape-out of an IC design. An industrial sponsor (see below) is sponsoring the fabrication of the chips in a 65nm CMOS foundry technology. The foundry will fabricate the chips that students subsequently test in the Fall.

Check out the 2016 course page, the 2015 course page, the 2014 course page, the 2022 course page , or the 2023 course page for videos and descriptions of the projects and fabricated chips in prior years. The Engineering School made a video about the demo session for the 2022 class:

Pre-Requisites

This 6000-level course is open to undergraduates with the necessary preparation who obtain registration permission from the instructor and their advisor. If you are an undergraduate interested in this course, contact the instructor a.s.a.p.

How to register for this course

There is only a limited number of fabrication slots available in the budget which limits the number of students we can accommodate for this lab. Registration for this course thus requires instructor's permission.

Please read the syllabus very carefully before registering for this course.

Step 1: After signing up for the waitlist for the course in SSOL, you need to fill out an application form. You will receive a confirmation email from Google Forms after submitting the form. Save the email, it has a link to make changes to your application later.
Step 2: The instructor (in consultation with other faculty) will then review the applications and grant or deny permission to register. We expect to process applications starting early January 2024 and target to complete the review a week before the semester starts.

Industrial Sponsor

As in 2022 and 2023, in 2024 the class is sponsored by industry. The fabrication and the packaging of the chips is sponsored by Apple Inc. IC design engineers from the sponsor will participate in design reviews and mentor teams; they will also offer prizes to the best designs.

Announcements

During the semester, we will mainly use Courseworks for email communications and grade-books. Make sure you have access to this class in Courseworks.