EE/CS 168 Fall 2023: Introduction to VLSI Design
Instructor
Sheldon Tan (stan@ece.ucr.edu)
Office Hours: Thursday 2:00-3:00 PM or by appointment.
Office: WCH 424
Lecture
Lecture time: Tuesday and Thursday 3:30-4:50 PM
Location: Winston Chung Hall | Room 143
Online Discussion forum: Piazza
This term we will be using Piazza for class discussion. The system is highly catered to getting you help fast and efficiently from classmates, the TA, and myself. Rather than emailing questions to the teaching staff, I encourage you to post your questions on Piazza. If you have any problems or feedback for the developers, email team@piazza.com.
Find our class page at: https://piazza.com/ucr/fall2023/ee168/home
Pizza signup link: https://piazza.com/ucr/fall2023/ee168
Lab
Section 021, F 6pm-8:50pm, Materials Sci and Engineering | Room 103 (Sachin Sachdeva)
Section 022, F 6pm-8:50pm Materials Sci and Engineering | Room 103 (Yibo Liu)
Teaching Assistants
- Sachin Sachdeva (ssach008@ucr.edu) for Section 021 and 023
- Office Hours: Tu 2:00pm to 4:00pm, WCH 361
- Yibo Liu (yliu401@ucr.edu) for Section 022
- Office Hours: Tu 2:00pm to 4:00pm, WCH 361
If you have any question regarding lecture and lab, you do not need to send email. Instead, you use github issue section, which can be found at https://github.com/sheldonucr/ucr-eecs168-lab
Reference book
Modern VLSI Design: IP-Based Design by Wayne Wolf, Fourth Edition, Prentice Hall PTR
Grading
Grading for the class will be performed on an individual basis. You will not be competing with the other students for your grade. If all students do well in the class, it is possible everyone will get an A. Your grade is only dependent on the effort you put into the class. Letter grades will be assigned using a 10% scale: 90% and above is correspond to an A, 80% and above to a B, 70% and above to a C, 60% and above to a D, and less than 60% to an F.
The grading will be based on a weighted sum as follows:
- 30% Final exam
- 20% Midterm (two midterms)
- 10% Homeworks
- 40% Lab Assignments
Policies
Punctuality: Please arrive on-time to class. Academic Dishonestly: Any academic dishonesty will no be tolerated. Unless otherwise specifically stated by your instructor or teaching assistant, all course work should be done on your own. Reading: Be prepared. Read over the material being covered in lecture before coming to class. For the most part, the lectures will follow the organization of the book. Any planned deviations from this order will be announced beforehand. Lab Attendance: Lab attendance is mandatory for the entire lab period during which you should be working on course related material. If you finish a lab assignment early, work can always work ahead on the next assignment. Class Mailing List: The class mailing and newsgroup in the ilearn will be used for all course related correspondence such as course announcements. Furthermore, please address all course related questions regarding lectures, homework, labs, etc. to the course mailing list or newsgroup. Cell Phones: Please turn your cell phone off before you come to class.
Lecture Schedule
All the slides will be available after the lecture in ilearn
Subject to change
| Week | Topic | Remark |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | Course Overview, Introduction to VLSI Design, (Chapter 1); Fabrication, Transistor Structures, Basic Transistor Behavior, (Chapter 2); Transistor Characteristics, (Chapter 2). | We assume that we have two lectures each week |
| Week 2 | Designs Rules and Stick Diagrams, Reliability and Packaging (Chapter 2). | HW1 given after the first lecture. |
| Week 3 | Combinational Logic Functions and CMOS Logic Gates, (Chapter 3); Properties of Combinational Gates, (Chapter 3); Electrical Properties of Combinational Gates (continued), (Chapter 3); | Midterm 1 in the second lecture |
| Week 4 | Review of Synopysis Design Tools and Flow (Customer Designer, Design Compiler, IC Compiler etc.). | HW2 given after the second lecture. |
| Week 5 | Wire Delay, Buffer Insertion, Etc., (Chapter 3); nMOS Gates, DCVS Logic, Domino Gates, (Chapter 3); Layout, Channel Routing, Simulation, (Chapter 4). | |
| Week 6 | Combinational Network Delay, Logic Optimization (Chapter 4); Transistor Sizing, (Chapter 4); Interconnect Design, Crosstalk, Power Optimization (Chapter 4). | HW3 given in the first or second lecture. |
| Week 7 | Logic Efforts, Logic effort based logic gate optimization and buffer insertion for interconnect optimization (Chapter 4). | Midterm 2 in second lecture. |
| Week 8 | Switch Networks, Combinational Testing, (Chapter 4); | |
| Week 9 | Hardware description language, Combinational circuit design in Verilog (Chapter 8); | HW4 given in second lecture. |
| Week 10 | Sequential machine design in Verilog (Chapter 8); Global routing, placement and floorplanning (Chapter 7) | |
| Final Week | Final: In the exam week of Winter quarter, Time: TBD | Final exam in this week. |
Homework
Homework assignment 1-4 will be given in ilearn. All the homework will be submitted into ilearn.
Quizzes
We may have one or two quizzes depending on the course progress.
Lab Schedule
Every communication (Please don't use email regarding lab question) will be at https://github.com/sheldonucr/ucr-eecs168-lab/issues. Please use GITHUB page instead of email to ask any question to TA.
For the lab schedule, more detail can be found at https://github.com/sheldonucr/ucr-eecs168-lab
Late assignment submission policy
You are only allowed two late submissions in this class.
For each late submission, you are only allowed only two late days with discounted credits for the assignment you are late.
- Late by first day: take 20% off the total credit of the assignment
- Late by second day: take 40% off the total credit of the assignment
- Late by third day and thereafter: not allowed.