VLSI industry - Digital Design Engineers - draft version
- 1. VLSI IndustryWhy to be a Digital Design Engineer ! Mahmoud Abdellatif April 2016
- 2. Agenda -What is VLSI ? -Why we should Care ? -VLSI Designers -VLSI Career in Egypt -How to be a Digital Designer -How to Start !
- 3. What is VLSI ! Think of all the devices you use in your daily life Mobile Phone Computer TV Car Washing Machine Refrigerator Ovens Credit Card or a Debit Card. One Common Thing One or more semiconductor chips >> Integrated Circuits (IC) IC comprises of millions of transistors on a small piece (10 mm x 10 mm) of a Doped Silicon
- 4. What is VLSI ! We can now fabricate millions of transistors in a unit square inch piece of silicon Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI). To facilitate this complex design and fabrication of an IC Various Automatic Tools and machines are available. Design and verification of an IC is done with the aid of tools Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software tools.
- 5. From Chips on PCB to SoCs
- 6. 1971 : Intel 4004 Gordon Moore
- 7. VLSI Design Styles Full Custom Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) Programmable Logic (PLD, FPGA) System-on-a-Chip (SoC)
- 8. Full Custom Design • Each circuit element carefully “handcrafted” • Huge design effort • High Performance • Typically used for high- volume applications • Example : AND Gate IC
- 9. Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC) Design for special application Processors are kind of ASICs
- 10. Field Programmable Logic Array (FPGA) Pre-manufactured components with programmable interconnect CAD tools greatly reduce design effort Lower Performance
- 11. System-on-chip (SOC) Combine several large blocks Predesigned custom cores (e.g., microcontroller) - “intellectual property” (IP) ASIC logic for special-purpose hardware Programmable Logic (PLD, FPGA) Analog
- 13. Agenda -What is VLSI ? -Why we should Care ? -VLSI Designers -VLSI Career in Egypt -How to be a Digital Designer -How to Start !
- 14. Applications • Daily Life Applications – Smart Phones – Processors • CPU, DSP, Controllers – Computers Commercial Electronics – Medicine – Memory chips • RAM, ROM, EEPROM – Analog • Mobile communication, audio/video processing – Programmable • PLA, FPGA – Embedded systems • Used in cars, factories • Network cards – System-on-chip (SoC)
- 15. Why we should Care ?
- 16. Why we should Care ?
- 19. Agenda -What is VLSI ? -Why we should Care ? -VLSI Designers -VLSI Career in Egypt -How to be a Digital Designer -How to Start !
- 21. Types of VLSI Designers There are various engineers required at each step of design VLSI industry main technical fields 1. EDA 2. Semiconductor Research 3. Design 4. Manufacturing
- 22. EDA Development Developing EDA tools which will be used for designing chips Companies like Cadence, Mentor Graphics and Synopsys are major players in this domain For People who have strong skills in C, C++, data structure and algorithms Methodology Development How to use tool and what options in tools are best suited for designer are fixed by these engineers Needs high Scripting capabilities
- 23. EDA Application Engineer Works with designers on implementing chip, They help designer in better understanding of tools Work with development team on implementing new features and communicate problems reported in field to development side Field Application engineer often travels to customer location to work with them Product Engineer Responsible for entire product Work with development on creating a solution for common problems. Tool Testers or Validation Engineers Makes sure that each tool comes out of EDA industry is tested well enough
- 24. Semiconductor Research Developing next generation technology node They mainly deal with fab and runs simulations an manufacturing processes
- 25. Design Logic Designer Designing logic in VHDL, Verilog or any other language Responsible for desiging digital parts of ASICs, FPGA desig Perform logic synthesis (Converting to hardware) Physical Design Starts from Synthesis, Placement, Routing, Post Routing optimization, Extraction, PDV (Physical Design Verification) Checks Many sub domains Analog Design Mixed signal design Digital design implementation SRAM or memory cell development.
- 26. Design Verification Verification Engineer provides pseudo inputs and trigger to verify functionality of design, (Remember they don't care about frequency here frequency is going to meet or not is job of Physical Design Engineers) Vera, OVM, VHDL, Verilog languages are used in this domain, IP verification is another area demand these days.
- 27. Manufacturing Working on developing masks, and manufacturing chips, Integrating and packaging chipm Building system, PCB and Boards
- 28. Agenda -What is VLSI ? -Why we should Care ? -VLSI Designers -VLSI Industry in Egypt -How to be a Digital Designer -How to Start !
- 29. Check This Link http://www.vlsiacademy.org/vlsi-companies-in-egypt.htmlwww.vlsiacademy.org/vlsi-companies-in-egypt.html VLSI Industry in Egypt
- 31. www.neospectra.com We Have Real Products ! Photo source Neospectra product website
- 32. Synopsys Acquires Blutooth Smart IP from Silicon Vision
- 33. +10,000 are interested in VLSI in Egypt www.facebook.com/groups/VLSIEgy/ Courses Digital Library Discussions Open Positions, Internships, Scholarships, Projects
- 34. Communications Digital Hardware Electromagnetics & Networks Computer Software Electronics Design Optics Control Systems Signal Processing Semiconductor Devices www.ee.psu.edu/Undergraduate/SpecializationAreas.aspx WhatdoyouStudy…………….
- 35. Electronics and Communication Engineers Career in Egypt Communication | Network Analog Electronics Optics Electromagnetic Devices Embedded Software
- 36. then, • Opportunities to work, study, in Egypt / Abroad ? • I am not from Cairo University or Ain Shams University ! can I join this field ? • What about your first Interview/Salary/Project ?
- 37. Agenda -What is VLSI ? -Why we should Care ? -VLSI Designers -VLSI Career in Egypt -How to be a Digital Designer -How to Start !
- 38. Digital Design Engineer Digital Design VLSI Digital Design FPGA Digital Engineer Verificatio n Engineer DSP Engineer System Engineer **Embeed ed Software
- 39. Agenda -What is VLSI ? -Why we should Care ? -VLSI Designers -VLSI Career in Egypt -How to be a Digital Designer -How to Start !
- 40. How to start ? Study Courses Digital Communication Digital Signal Processing Digital IC Design VHDL or Verilog
- 41. How to start ? Self Study/Projects FPGA Prototyping by VHDL Examples: Xilinx Spartan-3 Version www.fpga4fun.com vhdlguru.blogspot.com.eg www.asic-world.com www.coursera.org/course/vlsicad www.slideshare.net/StartGroup/presentations
- 42. Questions !
- 43. +2012-2-450-4158 mahmoud.abdellatif.2011@gmail.com eg.linkedin.com/in/mahmoudabdellatif www.facebook.com/mabdellatif11 Mahmoud Abdellatif VLSI Design Engineer thanks Feel free to ask me anytime