Microelectronic System Courses



Microelectronic systems must be specified at every level of abstraction including the system, behavioral, circuit, and process levels. Development of these systems involves mapping requirements into lower level specifications that detail not only the internal functions but also the interactions among the components and the external world. Thus, it generally involves the physical assembly of multiple components with well-defined interfaces. Some of the distinguishing characteristics of microelectronic systems are:

  • constructed using microelectronic devices,
  • incorporate computing (analog and/or digital processing),
  • include multiple components (e.g. several chips),
  • contain multiple technologies (e.g. boards and chips),
  • involve input/output devices (e.g. sensors and actuators),
  • conform to an interface specification, and
  • are specified hierarchically.


    Some example microelectronic systems are:

  • a portable instrument,
  • an accelerator coprocessor board in a personal computer, and
  • a multichip module containing an array of custom chips.


    Microelectronic systems may be implemented in one or more of a variety of technologies:

  • off-the-shelf digital VLSI (microprocessors or DSP coprocessors)
  • semicustom digital VLSI (standard cells or field-programmable gate arrays)
  • custom digital VLSI (usually bit-slice data-paths in CMOS), and/or
  • custom analog (Bipolar, CMOS or GaAs).


    Rapid prototyping of microelectronic systems should be an integral part of the education process since students must have the experience of taking a design from initial specification to a working implementation. This is the only way in which they can obtain a solid understanding of all the steps in the design, debugging, and evaluation cycle of a typical microelectronic system which may include several integrated circuits connected together on a printed circuit board or inside a multichip module. The trend will be to specify and optimize systems at a much higher level than in the past.


    Therefore, the goal of courses in microelectronic systems is to educate students who can use the paradigm of design, simulate, design-for-test, build and test (as opposed to just design, build and test) to create microelectronic systems, not just integrated circuits (ICs), of sufficient quality that the global competitiveness of U.S. industry will be continued and enhanced.




    To obtain specific information on the following courses, just click on the desired title:

    Juniors (3-page b/w pdf)

    ECE 551 -- Designing Application-Specific Integrated Circuits

    ECE 552 -- Team Design of Microelectronic Systems

    ECE 651 -- CAD of VLSI Systems I

    ECE 652 -- CAD of VLSI Systems II

    Mentor Graphics

    Cadence Design Systems

    Synopsys

    Capabilities

    Using the UTK Library

    dbouldin@utk.edu