Introduction to VLSI

Lecturer: Dr P. Robinson (pr@cl.cam.ac.uk)

No. of lectures: 12

Prerequisite courses: Digital Electronics, Structured Hardware Design, ECAD, Computer Design

Semiconductor technology.

Semiconductors, junction, diode, transistor. Bipolar devices. Structure and operation of MOS transistor.

Simple logic.

MOS layers, stick diagrams. Transmission gates. Layout of an inverter. transmission gates and pass transistor logic.

Combinatorial logic.

NOR and NAND in nMOS and CMOS. Compound gates. Delays.

Logic design.

Stereotyped design and PLAs.

Clocking and registers.

Storage elements and sequential machines. Dynamic logic.

Memory design.

System design.

Gates, shifters, adders, counters, memory, PLAs.

Fabrication.

Design rules and lambda rules. Performance and large loads. Scaling.

Semi-custom techniques.

Gate arrays, standard cell, full custom.

CAD systems and algorithms.

Design flow. Circuit descriptions.

Simulation and testing.

Self-timed circuits.

Recommended books:

Augarten, S. (1983). State of the Art: a photographic history of the integrated circuit. Ticknor and Fields.

Mavor, J., Jack, M.A. & Denyer, P.B. (1983). Introduction to MOS LSI Design. Addison-Wesley.

Mead, C. & Conway, L. (1980). Introduction to VLSI Systems. Addison-Wesley.

Russell, G., Kinniment, D.J., Chester, E.G. & McLauchlan, M.R. (ed.) (1985). CAD for VLSI. Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Weste, N.H.E. & Eshraghian, K. (1993). Principles of CMOS VLSI Design: A Systems Perspective. Addison-Wesley (2nd ed.).

Wolf, W. (1994). Modern VLSI Design - A System Approach. Prentice-Hall.