A Sneek Peak

into the VLSI

World
Who am I?

• xMEC EEE 2016

• M.Tech VLSI System, NIT Trichy
• ASIC Design Engineer, NVIDIA
 What is VLSI Industry? What is its scope in the current
era.

What are the different verticals in VLSI design?

What are the different type of roles/skill-set for which

a graduate is hired?
What are we gonna What it takes to compete for a graduate opening in

look at?
the vlsi industry?

What is the technical knowledge you need to get in?

From where/how can I learn them?

What are the practical options available to enter

semiconductor industry upon graduation.

QnA
What is VLSI?

Earlier Now
 Where do we use it?

COMPUTER AND COMPUTER CONTENT/MEDIA BIOMEDICAL DATA SCIENCE

MOBILE GRAPHICS FOR CREATION APPLICATION
PROCESSORS GAMING

ARTIFICIAL LOGISTICS AUTOMOTIVE

INTELLIGENCE
APPLICATIONS
Overview of the VLSI Design Flow
Front End Design Back End Design

System Logic Physical

Specification Circuit Design Verification
Verification

Functional
(Architecture)
Design

Functional Circuit Physical

Logic Design
Verification Verification Design
Different Graduate Job Roles in HW VLSI Industry

RTL/Logic Design (Digital and

Analog)

Design Verification

DFT (Design for Testability)

Physical Design

Post Silicon Validation

 1. Digital System Design Fundamentals
2. Advanced Digital Electronics –
Combinational and Sequential Logic Design

Technical 3. Basics of MOSFET Device physics and Digital

design using MOSFET

Knowledge 4.
5.
Hardware Descriptive Language – Verilog
Basics of ASIC Design Flow

Needed 6.
7.
DFT (Design for Testability)
Timing Analysis
8. Basic C programming and Data Structures
 Logic gates
Digital System Design Fundamentals Digital number systems
K-MAP

Solving problem statements using combinational circuits

Advanced Digital Electronics –
Flip-Flops
Combinational and Sequential Logic Shift Registers, counters (synchronous and asynchronous)
Design Circuit design using sequential elements

Lectures – Digital System Design Lecture NPTEL series by Prof.

Where do I learn this from? S. Srinivasan, IITM.
Books – Digital Logic and Computer Design by Morris Mano
Basics of MOSFET Device physics and Where do I learn this from?
Digital design using MOSFET
Internal Structure, working and characteristics CMOS VLSI Design by Neil Weste ( Just the 5 chapters
Different technical factors/phenomenon's affecting should be sufficient)
MOSFET performance
Basic Logic Design using MOSFETs.
Hardware Descriptive Language – Verilog Where do I learn this from?

Different technical factors/phenomenon's affecting Verilog HDL by Samir Palnitkar

MOSFET performance
Verilog constructs
Combinational and Behavioral coding
Blocking and non-blocking style coding
Case statement-based coding (Very handy for FSM’s)
 DFT: Where do I learn this from?
Fault models VLSI physical design by Prof. Indranil Sengupta,
Pattern generation for fault models IIT KGP
Boundary scan
BIST, LFSR
Basics of ASIC Design Flow Where do I learn this from?
Different stages of ASIC design VLSI physical design by Prof. Indranil Sengupta,
Different types of ASIC design models IIT KGP
ASIC by Michael J Smith
 Timing Analysis Where do I learn this from?
Setup and Hold time violations STA in http://www.vlsi-expert.com
Design methods to fix violations
Calculation of setup/hold violations/slack and
also max. frequency of circuits
 C Programming
Good understanding of C concepts and decent
programming knowledge
Basic understanding of different data structures
Where do I learn this from?
mycodeschool Youtube Channel
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/
 Options available to get into the industry

Campus Placement upon

graduation

Higher Studies in VLSI -> Campus • MS abroad (Preferably US)

Placement upon post-grad • M.Tech in VLSI through GATE

Summer/Final year internships in

VLSI companies

Joining VLSI training institutes • If performed well, can get into a good VLSI services
which offers PG Diploma Courses company
How to reach me
Linkedin – Mohammed Akhil P R
Email – akhilparakkat@gmail.com
Mobile – 8921286284
Questions?