Indo-US eLearning Course with Emphasis on PSOC to ASIC Transition"

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A. Rucinski , J. Connell , P. Kane , T. Kimsey , S. Mandalika , T. Rideout , B. Steward , and K. Vedula
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University of New Hampshire, USA 2 Cypress Semiconductors, USA & India 3 BITS Pilani Hyderabad Campus, India 4 Indo-US Collaboration on Engineering Education, USA & India ABSTRACT Programmable Systems on a Chip (PSOC) represent one of the distruptive technologies (Christiensen 1995) that provide an alternative to FPGA and bread boarding as the first cut for ASIC designs. An educational experiment aimed at the development of an IP library compatible with both PSOC and ASIC technologies was conducted. The aforementioned IP library has been jointly developed by a US and Indian university with assistance from the Indo-US Collaboration on Engineering Education (IUCEE). Industrial support was provided by Cypress Semiconductor and MOSIS. The joint eLearning course used existing VLSI courses in both hemispheres utilizing GoToMeeting. The IP Mixed Signal Library specifications were assigned as a VLSI project in the course: the US team was responsible for the digital component submitted to MOSIS while the Indian team's responsibility was the analog component. The experiment provided indispensible logistics, management and social engineering experience. It will be used for Curricula Development of 30 eLearning courses organized by IUCEE. The IP library will be utilized in two global projects: (1) Weather Monitoring from Local Neighborhood to Magnetosphere supported by State of New Hampshire and NASA (ASIC for Space Applications); (2) Health Monitoring in Rural Areas supported by Cypress, Ericson, and Microsoft (ASIC for RF). The experiment also provided material for initiatives aimed at the rebirth of VLSI education in the United States (Silicon Renaissance) and the establishment of education hubs around the Globe (Critical Infrastructure Dependability Laboratories CIDNET). Overall, this experiment is one of the contributing milestones towards Global Engineering Education. Keywords: ASIC, Collaborative, PSOC, PSoC, VLSI Contact: Andrzej Rucinski, University of New Hampshire, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Durham, NH 03824, USA; phone +1 (603)862-1381; fax +1 (603)862 1832; andrzej.rucinski@unh.edu 1. Introduction 1. Disruptive Microelectronics a. What does disruptive microelectronics means? b. What is PSoC? c. Capabilities of PSoC i. Analog ii. Digital iii. Data Aquistion iv. Communication v. Etc. d. PSoC vs FPGA 2.e. PSoC vs traditional Analog Design Process (Bread Boarding) 2. PSoC as a Foreend Prototype for ASIC 3.a. Benefits using PSoC in the design process

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4.3. Indo=US Collaborative Curriculum a. IUCEE b. VLSI Course c. Project PSoCs capability to easily prototype circuits is demonstrated through the UNH CubeSat project. In this project PSoC was used in several different ways to design and test the analog circuitry that is to be used to detect and measure charged particle activity in space. During the initial design stages PSoCs programmable analog capabilities were used to rapid prototype and test different design implementations. By using a programmable system to prototype analog circuitry many of the problems associated with tradition prototyping are solved, such as the need for large amounts of integrated circuits, poor electrical connections, and wiring mistakes. Once the design was finalized in PSoC it could then be transferred into a discrete component traditional prototype. By using PSoC before a discrete prototype the design time and cost was minimized. *insert psoc creator screenshot After the analog design was finished the PSoC then took on a new role as a test device. Using the high performance analog to digital capabilities of the PSoC coupled with its ARM Cortex microprocessor, the device is a very potent measurement system. Now the circuitry could be tested by using the same PSoC system that was used to prototype the analog circuitry. i. Use of PSoC in early stages of analog circuit design ii. A/D and Data acquisition capabilities iii. Digital control capabilities iv. Testing design using PSoC d.v. Benefits of using PSoC 5.4. PSoC Compatible IP Library 6.5. Course Evaluation and Next Steps a. IUCEE Virtual Academy b. CIDNET c. VLSI Fabrication and Open Source Tools d. Conclusions 7.6. Acknowledgements 8.7. References
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