A Consummate Model of VLSI Education for Preparing the Workforce towards Meeting the Challenges of the Hi-Tech Industry through Industrial Involvement
Year: 2025
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: In order to prepare the workforce for VLSI program, theoretical instructions must be complemented with adequate laboratory facilities in order to validate the design from its conception to the finished chip along with its real time testing.This comprises of four distinct and disparate phases namely-Phase 1: Chip design -This basically involves the design of the chip based on specifications provided by the customer, Phase 2: Mask Set -It involves the conversion of design's layout and placement into set of masks e.g.diffusion, contact, and metallization masks etc., Phase 3: Mask Transfer -This involves transferring the mask set onto a wafer substrate such as Si or GaAs etc., Phase 4: Packaged Chip -This incorporates inscribing, dicing, bonding and encapsulating chip in a plastic or ceramic package, depending on customer's requirement.Most of these phases require industrial involvement to a great extent.The author proposed an innovative Education Model (Page 4) at Canadian Conference of Engineering Education held at Helifax (Canada) in 1994.The author has been providing such an integral Education since 1984 wherein he has received significant amount of funding over the years from Massachusetts Microelectronics Center, MA/Com., Intel Corporation, Raytheon Company, and Sander's Corporation etc.He is still receiving substantial amount of funding from Skyworks Solutions (formerly Alpha Industries) and Analog Devices since the establishment of Microelectronics center at University of Massachusetts Lowell (formerly University of Lowell) in 1986, the author being the founding director.For in-depth microelectronics education, Stateof-the-Art laboratory facilities are required to complement theoretical instructions in order to validate the modeled microelectronic design from its conception to the finished chip along with its real time testing.The system design in general and VLSI system design in particular needs multi disciplinary skills.These Microelectronics/VLSI models address their problem adequately.In order to become an integral Microelectronics/VLSI designer one needs to inculcate skills in design, simulation, testing, verification and validation.This requires a special commitment of funds which are beyond budgetary allocations of most of the schools.It is because of this reason forging a partnership between academia and industry is of vital importance.The author is not only successful in forging such a partnership with the industry, but has also developed curriculum along state-of-the-art facilities laboratory in VLSI design and fabrication (Distributed Semiconductor Instructional Processing Laboratory) towards such endeavors as can be viewed on http://ece.caeds.eng.uml.
Source: ASEE Northeast Section Meeting
Author: Kanti Prasad
Institution: University of Massachusetts Lowell
Language: English
Subfield: Architecture
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: bronze
Funder: Intel Corporation
OpenAlex ID: W4409046826