EC308

VLSI Systems

Pre-Requisite : EC309
Contact Hours and Credits : ( 3 -0- 0 ) 3

Objective :

To introduce various aspects of VLSI circuits and their design including testing.

Topics Covered :

VLSI design methodology, VLSI technology- NMOS, CMOS and BICMOS circuit fabrication. Layout design rules. Stick diagram. Latch up.

Characteristics of MOS and CMOS switches.  Implementation of logic circuits using MOS and CMOS technology, multiplexers and memory, MOS transistors, threshold voltage, MOS device design equations.  MOS models, small-signal AC analysis. CMOS inverters, propagation delay of inverters,  Pseudo NMOS, Dynamic CMOS logic circuits, power dissipation.

Programmable logic devices- antifuse, EPROM  and SRAM  techniques.  Programmable logic cells. Programmable inversion and expander logic. Computation of interconnect delay, Techniques for driving large off-chip capacitors, long lines, Computation of interconnect delays in FPGAs  Implementation of  PLD, EPROM,  EEPROM, static and dynamic RAM in CMOS.

An overview of the features of advanced FPGAs, IP cores, Soft core processors, Various factors determining  the cost of a VLSI, Comparison of ASICs, FPGAs , PDSPs and CBICs . Fault tolerant VLSI architectures

VLSI testing -need for testing , manufacturing test principles, design strategies  for test, chip level and system level test techniques.

Course Outcomes :

The students will be able to

  • CO1: Describe the techniques used for VLSI  fabrication, design of  CMOS logic circuits, switches and memory
  • CO2: Describe the techniques used the design of CMOS logic circuits, switches and memory in VLSI 
  • CO3: Generalize   the design techniques  and analyze the characteristics of  VLSI circuits such as area, speed and power dissipation
  • CO4: Explain and compare the architectures  for FPGA, PAL and PLDs and  evaluate their characteristics such as area, power dissipation and reliability
  • CO4 : Use the  advanced FPGAs  to  realize  Digital signal processing systems
  • CO5:  Describe the techniques for  fault tolerant VLSI circuits
  • CO6:  Explain and compare the  techniques for chip level and board level testing

Text Books:

  • N.H.E. Weste et al, CMOS VLSI design, (3/e), Pearson , 2005.
  • J. Smith, Application Specific Integrated Circuits, Pearson, 1997.
  • M.M. Vai, VLSI design, CRC Press, 2001.

Reference Books:

  • Pucknell & Eshraghian, Basic VLSI Design, PHI, (3/e).
  • Uyemura,  Introduction to VLSI Circuits and Systems, Wiley, 2002.