[VLSI BOOK COVER]

Introduction to CMOS VLSI Design

Instructor

Adnan Aziz, adnan AT ece ADOT utexas ANOTHERDOT edu ACES 6.120, Office Hours: TuTh 11:00-noon

Job Openings

Sun, Qualcomm, Synopsys, Cisco, Freescale

Descriptors

Here are the detailed course descriptors for 360R, and 382M.7 with a breakdown of prerequisites, lectures, grading policy, test dates, etc. Unique No. 17235 (383M.7), 16925 (360R)

Here are three questions that you can use to check if you are ready for the class.

Biography

Please fill out this small bio; it really helps me get to know the class better.

Important Dates

Class Notes

I will use, with minor modifications, the excellent notes prepared by David Harris to accompany the text. I've listed the corresponding sections of the book, but you should read more broadly. In particular, I would like you to pay particular emphasis to the "Pifalls and Fallacies" section concluding each chapter.

  1. Introduction (1.1-1.3)
  2. CMOS Fabrication and its implications (1.3, 3.1-3.5)
  3. Elementary CMOS logic design and layout (1.4-1.5.5) See Chris Mack's page for a nice litho tutorial.
  4. MOS Device Equations (2.1-2.3.1)
  5. CMOS Logic: Quantiative Analysis (2.3.2-2.6, 4.2)
  6. Logical Effort (4.3)
  7. Interconnect (4.5-4.6)
  8. Simulating Circuits (5 - we won't cover this material, but you may want to brush up on it)
  9. Adders (10.1-10.2) Mathematical treatment of parallel prefix computation
  10. Advanced static gate design (6.1-6.2.1)
  11. Alternatives to static logic (6.2.2-6.2.5, 6.4-6.6)
  12. Sequential Design (7.1-7.5)
  13. Datapath (10.3-10.10)
  14. SRAMs (11.1-11.2)
  15. CAMs, ROMs, and PLAs (11.4-11.7)
  16. MOS Devices in DSM (2.4)
  17. Circuit Pitfalls (6.3)
  18. Test (4.8, 9)
  19. Low Power (6, with an emphasis on 6.5)
  20. Design for Skew (7.5-7.6, 12.5)
  21. Packaging, Power Supplies, and I/O (12.2-12.4)
  22. Scaling and Economics (4.9, and 8.5)
  23. Evolution of Intel processors
  24. Case Study: Cell Processor. An article detailing the cell processor
  25. Review

Teaching Assistants

Homework

Homework problems, solutions, and issues here.

Midterms

Projects

Resources