3. VLSI research and education –
an introspection
What we need
•Produce researchers/engineers having world class expertise and put them
to work with the best VLSI technology, innovated and indigenous, across a
wide range.
•VLSI design industry is a fast growing industry, our aim is to take part
actively in the process to make it even faster.
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4. This can be done by:
•Developing a research team in the field of VLSI design for achieving
excellence in this field,
•Training potential VLSI design engineers for Indian VLSI industry as well as
to satisfy the global need.
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5. Some constraints…
•The progress in VLSI education is having a plethora of constraints since
inception.
•we need to develop laboratories with the latest VLSI CAD tools, EDA tools,
test equipments, and fabrication libraries.
•However, without active/direct support from the industry and the faculty
members/trained staff our goal can not be achievable.
•Active participation from all corners in this endeavor is expected.
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6. VLSI Design: where we
stand today?
The design community of 21st century have to live with a few major
problems such as :
•Design Verification
•Efficient synthesis of Designer’s intent expressed in a suitable
language supporting verifiability;
•An efficient CAD tool at high level to try out alternative designs with
desired trade off in silicon area, throughput, and cost; and
•Cost effective testing of a complex SOC.
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7. No doubt, remarkable progress has been made to
address each of these problems.
However totally innovative solutions are needed
which should aim at
•exploring new models of computation;
•supporting easy verifiability; while
•solving a specific class of problems rather than
generalization; and5/1/15 7
8. VLSI Design and Test -
Indian scenario
Problems in VLSI Education in India
•Not many properly trained people
•Software are costly, according to Indian standard
•Problems of installation, commissioning, periodic updating and technical
support for professionally used tools
•Long times involved in taming the tool
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9. Problems for the growth in VLSI Industry in India
•Being dependent on the orders from outside India
•Completely dependent on the global market
•Lack of fabrication set-up India should design the chips of its own
problems
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10. How do the other Asian countries advance?
Japan’s Experience: Industry-Academic interaction
VLSI Design and Education Center (VDEC)
•An organization supported by many industries
•aims at improving education on VLSI and supports VLSI chip
fabrication for universities in Japan
•more than 450 research groups from 158 universities in Japan are
utilizing services and support from this Center
•in 2000, 335 chips were fabricated by VDEC
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11. Semiconductor Technology Academic Research Center (STARC)
•An organization supported by 11 semiconductor companies of Japan
•aims to strengthen the country’s technological foundation concerning
silicon semiconductors.
•enhance international competitiveness by funding universities for
research
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12. China’s Experience
•China is a late starter in VLSI, but
there is a lot of change in recent
past.
•In 2002, mainland China produced
9.6 billion chips (in comparison to5/1/15 12
13. What India should do – some suggestions
•Should attempt to design and fabricate all the chips, we need in our
internal market
•Besides the designing chips for the foreign needs, try to find the
needs of our country
•Initially, a lot of investment is needed from the Government (as like
as China)
•May try to expertise on a particular production (example, South
Korea on Memory Design, Thailand on IC Packaging)
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14. VLSI education – the
Indian scenario
Where are we today?
•Many major design companies (count the subsidiary industry as well)
have an India Center.
•Many more are working on a plan to setup.
•Every India Center has a very aggressive growth plan
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15. Why India?
•India Operations were fuelled by
– Cost Advantages
– Availability of an English speaking, aware technical community
•India Operations have been supported by
– Positive Policy adoption
– Improving service attitude
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16. What constitutes “Talent
in VLSI” ?
•Device Physics, VLSI Technology, Fabrication
•Transistor-level Circuit Knowledge
•Analog and mixed signal design, RF
•Design Digital Design (HDL)
•Synthesis
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17. •Verification (Simulation, Formal Verification, …)
•EDA
•DFT
•Applications
– Signal Processing
– Networks
– Embedded Systems
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18. Goals of University –
Industry Interaction
•Talent Pool Generation
– growing the right kind of talent
– VLSI is a fast growing field and curriculum updates cannot keep pace
•Research Collaboration
– Funded projects
– Start-ups
– Papers
– Patents
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19. Academia’s Concerns
•Indian semiconductor/VLSI industries are
not coming forward for project training,
project ideas, data and guidance
•Take faculty for deputation
•Need long-term projects
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20. Summary
•The opportunity is immense
•We are ahead - yet, competition is fast catching up
•We need to deliver through the production of abundant quality man
power
•Strong industry and academia interaction
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23. MARKET RESEARCH
Where does India stand?
Are there any govt. initiatives?
What is the status of jobs and career?
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24. Where INDIA stands
200+ semiconductor companies are already here
--23 of the top 25
Semiconductor companies in the world have a strong presence in India
--India to host $400 billion electronics market by 2020
Intel Xeon processor designed at Intel India (Bangalore)
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25. Do you know Wipro, Infosys and L&T are already into VLSI
design?
Almost all major IT companies have started investing in chip
designing
With GDP of only 5.8%, annual growth of chip design industry is
estimated 10%!!
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26. GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES
National Policy on Electronics, 2012
National Electronics Policy, 2014
Two new fabrication plants to be set up
Aurangabad to become next Electronic Manufacturing Cluster
Special manpower development programme (SMDP) to introduce VLSI
and the news goes on and on and on…
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27. WHAT ABOUT THE JOBS?
NPE (2011) aims to create employment for around 28 Million people
75,000 jobs waiting in the year 2015
* IITs and NITs together satisfy only 25% of the job requirement in chip
design
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32. HOW TO ENTER THE MARKET
What are the skills required?
What should be in the resume?
Does post-graduation and PhD counts
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33. WHAT ARE THE SKILLS REQUIRED?
Digital design
HDL (VHDL, Verilog or SystemVerilog)
Sound understanding of VLSI design flow
Basic EDA tools (Modelsim, Xilinx ISE, Virtuoso, QuestaSim, etc)
Short-term courses and certification
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34. WHAT MAKES YOUR RESUME SPECIAL?
Industry standard projects
Thesis and research
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35. JOB PROFILE
Design engineer
Product engineer
Verification engineer
Test engineer
Applications engineer
Process engineer
Packaging engineer
CAD engineer
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36. PACKAGES AND GROWTH
Fresher (Graduate): 4 lacs INR per annum
Fresher (Post-graduate): 6 – 8 lacs per annum
Fresher (PhD holder): 11 – 18 lacs per annum
Source: http://goo.gl/Wx7xGf
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