(3 semester hours) Digital integrated circuits are the enabling technology for the present information age. Only few of the current  systems could be designed without the use of these integrated circuits. Because of this, there is an ever growing demand for digital ICs that are faster, energy efficient, smaller, cheaper and denser.  Whether digital systems are high speed, high density, low power or low cost, CMOS technology finds ubiquitous use in the majority of leading-edge commercial applications.  All CMOS digital ICs operate using the same concepts that will be presented in this class. The only difference is in the complexity of the circuits.

Topics in this course include:   Introduction to MOS transistor, equations for voltage, current, etc. Details of CMOS inverter, transmission gates. Design of complex CMOS gates; combinational and sequential design techniques in VLSI; issues in static, transmission gate, and dynamic logic design. Subsystem design: adders, multipliers, memory and I/O. Clocking and clock distribution. Introduction to low power design. Design for testability. CMOS technology, and rationale behind various design rules. Use of CAD tools to layout, check and simulate VLSI circuits. This is a design and CAD tool intensive course involving a  full-custom VLSI project. 
Prerequisite: EE 3320 or equivalent.

 

 

(3 semester hours) Advanced topics in VLSI design covering topics beyond the first course, EE 6325. Use of high-level design, synthesis, and simulation tools. Scaling of technology, deep submicron technology. Circuit optimization. Issues related to dynamic logic design. Clocking and timing issues, clock distribution and routing problems, asynchronous, self-timed circuits. Low power design techniques. Study of various VLSI-based computations, systolic arrays, etc. Discussions on current research topics in VLSI design. 
Prerequisite:  EE 6325 or equivalent.