VLSI- at a GLANCE

Xinoe Systems Pvt Ltd

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Bridging Gap Between Industry &

Academia

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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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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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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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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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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; and

• finally, exploiting the regular, modular, local neighborhood cascade-able structure efficiently supported by the VLSI fabrication technology.

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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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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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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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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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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 to 32

billion chips imported). China is trying to produce all the chips it needs

•Government has a strong initiative. A lot of investment were done by the Government in VLSI industry (more than 50%)

•There are about 500 ASIC design companies in mainland china

•Industry-academic interaction

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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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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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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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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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• Verification (Simulation, Formal Verification, …)

• EDA

• DFT

• Applications– Signal Processing– Networks– Embedded Systems

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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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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

•Does any Indian semiconductor industry

even want anything from the academia

(other than students?)

•Make this a win-win situation for all

concerned (students, industry AND faculty)

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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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INDUSTRIAL TRENDS AND MARKET

GROWTH

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OVERVIEW

Market analysisResearch & DevelopmentHow to enter the marketJob perspectives

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MARKET RESEARCHWhere does India stand?Are there any govt. initiatives?What is the status of jobs and career?

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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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 Do you know Wipro, Infosys and L&T are already into VLSI design?Almost all major IT companies have started investing in chip designingWith GDP of only 5.8%, annual growth of chip design industry is estimated 10%!!

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GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES

National Policy on Electronics, 2012National Electronics Policy, 2014Two new fabrication plants to be set upAurangabad to become next Electronic Manufacturing ClusterSpecial manpower development programme (SMDP) to introduce VLSIand the news goes on and on and on…

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WHAT ABOUT THE JOBS?

NPE (2011) aims to create employment for around 28 Million people75,000 jobs waiting in the year 2015

* IITs and NITs together satisfy only 25% of the job requirement in chip design

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By 2015..

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RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENTKey playersResearch areas

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KEY PLAYERSIntel Texas InstrumentsAMD ARMIBM QualcommCadence SynopsysCypress semiconductorand many more…

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RESEARCH AREAS

Reconfigurable computing using FPGAHeterogeneous computingLow power designHardware security and the list is endless…

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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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WHAT ARE THE SKILLS REQUIRED?

Digital designHDL (VHDL, Verilog or SystemVerilog)Sound understanding of VLSI design flowBasic EDA tools (Modelsim, Xilinx ISE, Virtuoso, QuestaSim, etc)Short-term courses and certification

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WHAT MAKES YOUR RESUME SPECIAL?

Industry standard projectsThesis and research

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JOB PROFILE

Design engineerProduct engineerVerification engineerTest engineerApplications engineerProcess engineerPackaging engineerCAD engineer

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PACKAGES AND GROWTH

Fresher (Graduate): 4 lacs INR per annumFresher (Post-graduate): 6 – 8 lacs per annumFresher (PhD holder): 11 – 18 lacs per annum

Source: http://goo.gl/Wx7xGf

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THANKYOU