Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

The Computer Engineering and Systems Group

EE 454 — Digital Integrated Circuit Design.

Spring 2006

                
Instructor:		Sunil P Khatri
Office:		320 WERC
Phone:		979-845-8371
Fax:		979-845-2630
E-mail:		l i n u s (spell backwards, drop spaces) at ece dot tamu dot edu
Class time  :	TR 2:20pm - 3:35pm, ZEC 223C 
Office Hours:	TR 1:20pm - 2:20pm, WERC 320
		or by appointment
Text:		The course will be taught from lecture notes which are
		posted on this page.  These notes draw from several sources, 
		and can be considered comprehensive. I will assign reading 
		assignments from the first book in the list below. The second 
		and third books in the list below are not required, but you may 
		refer to them for additional information. 

		1) Digital Integrated Circuits - A Design Perspective (2nd Edition) - Rabaey, Chandrakasan, Nikolic 
		2) Principles of CMOS VLSI Design - a systems perspective - Weste and Eshraghian 
		3) The design and analysis of VLSI circuits - Glasser and Dobberpuhl.

Course Objective

This course covers several aspects of digital integrated circuit design. Starting with MOSFET equations, we will delve into several areas of digital circuit design, including recent changes in circuit design approaches. We will cover different design styles, memory design, as well as board level design concepts.

The broader goal of the class is to take you through a tour of the issues a present-day circuit designer deals with, and the design techniques they utilize. At the end of this class, you would have at your disposal an understanding of the analytical and practical techniques that are required for a VLSI circuit designer to effectively function in today’s industry.

Course Prerequisites

ELEN 248 and ELEN 325. If you do not have taken any of these courses already, you cannot take ELEN 454.

Course Outline

        Gate and wire delays and their shift in importance 
        Overview of CMOS device fundamentals 
                DC Characteristics
                AC Characteristics
                Processing overview
        Different circuit design styles 
                NMOS
                Static CMOS
                Dynamic CMOS
                Pass Transistor design
                PLAs
                SOI implications
                GaAs implications
        Memory design fundamentals 
                Types of memory cells
                Design considerations for memory
                3-Dimensional capacitive parasitics.
        Transmission lines and their modeling 
                On-chip clock nets
                Board nets
        On-chip clock distribution schemes. 
                H-tree clock distribution
                Dynamic de-skewing of a clock network

Important Logistical Issues

As I indicated in the first lecture, you are responsible to read this page and familiarize yourself with the important logistical information on it.

Please remember that email will be used as an official means of communicating class information to you. You should make sure that the email address that you gave me on the first day of class is a current and functioning address. In case of any changes in your email address, please let me know ASAP.

Per University Regulations, I will allow a student who is absent from class for the observance of a religious holy day to take an examination or complete an assignment scheduled for that day within a reasonable time after the absence, if, not later than the 15th day after the first day of the semester, the student notifies me that they would be absent on which particular days.

If you believe that you have a disability requiring an accomodation, the University provides academic adjustments and auxiliary aids as defined under the law. In such a case, you should register your documentation with the Office of Services for Students with Disabilities before any accomodations are made. Once this office reviews your documentation and verifies your condition, I will make reasonable accomodations.

Remember that plagiarism will not be tolerated and will be dealt with under the Aggie Honor System Office guidelines.

Homework, Exams, and Grading

             25%   7-10 Homework assignments
             40%   Two Midterm Exams (20% each)
             35%   Final Exam

As requested by you all, I will post a “running average” for the class on this website. The current statistics for ELEN 454 are:

	Homework mean          : 35.32 points (Includes data from 4 HWs). 
	Homework median        : 38.00 points. 
	Homework std-deviation : 11.47 points. 
	Midterms mean          : 74.51 points (Includes data from 2 Midterms). 
	Midterms median        : 76.00 points.
	Midterms std-deviation : 11.21 points.
	Final    mean          : NA points.
	Final    median        : NA points.
	Final    std-deviation : NA points.

In general you will have one week to do a homework assignment. Homework assignments will typically be assigned on Tuesdays, and will be due in class one week later. The due date for each homework will be indicated. A homework turned in one week late will be penalized 50% (in other words, the score I enter in my gradesheet for such a homework will be half of whatever score you actually obtain on that homework after it is graded). A homework turned in later than a week will receive no credit, and will not be graded. Note that for homework assignments that are due just before any exam, no credit will be awarded for submissions after the due date, as we discussed in class on the first day. You are welcome to work together on homework, but you should not turn in identical solutions, or one solution for multiple students. Homework assignments will occasionally contain questions which involve the use of SPICE, a circuit simulator.

There will be two midterm exams and one final exam in this course. You will be allowed to carry one 8.5 X 11 cheat-sheet to these exams. You may use both sides of the cheat-sheet. Midterms and the final will be closed-book exams. The final exam will be comprehensive. These exams will be conducted as follows, as we discussed on the first day of class.

             Midterm 1  : Tuesday   2/21/06 from 7:30pm - 9:15pm. Location ZEC 223B 
             Midterm 2  : Tuesday   3/28/06 from 7:30pm - 9:15pm. Location ZEC 223B
             Final Exam : Wednesday 5/10/06 from 1:00pm - 3:00pm. Location TBA

The grading of homework assignments will be done by my ELEN 454 grader (Bo Shen). If you have any questions or issues with the grading, they should be directed to me. The grading of midterms and final will be done by me. I will do my best to grade mid-terms within a week. The second mid-term will be graded before the Q-drop date, which is April 3, 2006.

I will hold extended office hours just before exams. Also I will hold a review session before each exam.

I will grade ELEN 454 on a curve.

Lecture Notes

Class Notes:

1-dsmconn.pdf .

2-cmos.pdf .

3-strawman.pdf .

4-dcchar.pdf .

5-processing.pdf .

6-acchar.pdf .

7-spicespace.pdf .

8-cktstyles.pdf .

9-memory.pdf .

10-xline.pdf .

Homework and Other Postings

Homework assignments and solutions:

Software Resources

Sunil P Khatri / Texas A&M University /