ECE 795 – Topics in Electrical and Computer Engineering

VLSI Array Processor Design

Instructor	Dr. K. Vijayan Asari
Office	Kaufman Hall, Room 231L
Phone	757-683-3752
Email	vasari_at_odu_dot_edu
Office Hours
Tuesday	1:30 pm – 4:30 pm
Thursday	1:30 pm – 4:30 pm
Lectures
Time	4:45 pm – 7:55 pm Monday
	4:45 pm – 7:55 pm Wednesday
Location	KAUF 225
Credits	3
Pre-requisites	ECE 313 Electronic Circuits
	ECE 341 Digital System Design / ECE 241 Digital Logic

Objective

The main objective of this course is to provide an introduction to modern VLSI design. The course deals with advanced logic and system design along with circuit design. The most rewarding aspect of this course is that it puts together previously learned basics on circuit design, logic design, and digital architecture design to understand the tradeoffs between the different levels of abstraction.

Course Description

This course focuses on the design and synthesis of Very Large Scale Integrated (VLSI) chips using CMOS technology for complex digital systems using integrated circuit cells as building blocks and employing hierarchical design methods. Design issues at layout, schematic, logic and RTL levels will be studied. Commercial design software will be used for laboratory exercises. An overview of VLSI computer-aided design (CAD) tools and theoretical concepts in VLSI architectures and algorithms will also be discussed.

Course Outline

This course is designed to provide undergraduate and graduate students in electrical and computer engineering the ability to design and synthesis VLSI chips using CMOS technology focusing towards the development of an Application Specific Integrated Circuit. Topics: introduction, design tools, the CMOS transistor, fabrication, layout and design rules implementing logic in CMOS, design of adders, dynamic CMOS logic high speed adders and ALUs, CMOS transistor theory, circuit characterization, delay estimation, CMOS performance optimization, clocking strategies, other building blocks and memory, control design, electrical effects, introduction to design verification, introduction to testing, design of high performance circuits, low power design high performance processor design, introduction to timing verification, introduction to formal verification, verification of large designs, design for testability, design of asynchronous circuits, future trends

Course Description for Graduate Students - ECE595

Each graduate student will make a 15 minutes presentation on a key topic in advanced VLSI design and the class will discuss the ideas. Students will also be designing and evaluating an integrated system-on-a-chip in a team project. Project will include developing the specification of the product, performing an analysis of its feasibility, developing the detailed design, writing a report on the design and making a presentation to the class

Long Term Project – ECE795

This course includes a major semester long project work in addition to the course requirements of ECE 595.

Honor Code

Students are expected to follow the ODU Honor Code for all assignments and exams. Any violations will be dealt with strictly according to university policy. However, this is also a course, which requires a lot of interaction, and sharing of ideas is encouraged. But all work that you turn in with your name on it should reflect your work, not someone else's. If at any time you have a question about whether you are violating the Honor Code, please ask me to make sure.

Disabilities

Students who have documented disabilities in accordance with university guidelines will be provided appropriate opportunities if the documentation is brought to the instructor's attention.