VLSI Design

• Describe and explain the basis of MOS technology, including the MOS field effect transistor
• Describe and explain basic methods and conditions in digital integrated circuit design
• Describe combinational and sequential digital systems and list their properties and characteristics (timing, area, power dissipation)
• Explain, construct and analyze parts of a digital system, including interconnections, with due consideration of technical and economical terms
• Illustrate the main tasks to be performed in the design of a digital system: simulation, logic synthesis and place-and-route
• Apply suitable techniques to design of systems for high-speed and low-power
• Design a digital system, or part of it, based on given specifications and the methods learned
• Analyze the system designed, compare the results with some reference design and evaluate system’s performance

Overview on MOS technology (masks, design rules and electrical parameters) and basic components of MOS circuits (MOSFETs, resistors, capacitors, switches).
Technology scaling.
Timing and power dissipation of combinational and sequential components.
Design flow: levels of abstraction, design flow for ASICs.
Design tasks: simulation, synthesys, place&route.
Design for low-power: high-level, RT-level and gate-level techniques.
Memory families (static, dynamic, flash).
System level issues: clock distribution, packaging, signal integrity.

02138/02139, Basic course in digital systems