ELEC 7770-001 Advanced VLSI Design
Spring 2008, TuTh 3:30PM, Broun 306
Course Syllabus (Not updated for this offering) Grades

Instructor: Vishwani D. Agrawal, James J. Danaher Professor of ECE

Course Website: www.eng.auburn.edu/~vagrawal/COURSE/E7770_Spr08/course.html

FINAL EXAM:
Take-Home Exam, assigned Apr 26, 2008, due May 1, 2008, can be emailed until midnight.

LECTURES:
Lecture 1: Introduction, 1/15/08
Lecture 2: VLSI Yield and Moore's Law, 1/17/08
. . . Gordon Moore's articles, 1965, 1975, 1995
Lecture 3: Verification, 1/22/08
. . . Choice of Tests for Verification and Equivalence Checking . . .
. . . Characteristic Polynomial Method for Verification . . .
Lecture 4: Timing analysis and STA, 1/31/08, 2/5/08
Lecture 5: Timing Verification and Optimization, 2/7/08
Lecture 6: Linear Programming - A Mathematical Optimization Technique, 2/14/08
Lecture 7: A Linear Programming Solution to Clock Constraint Problem, 2/21/08
Lecture 8: Clock Skew Problem, 2/26/08
Lecture 9: Retiming, 2/28/08
Lecture 10: Constraint Graph and Performance Optimization, 3/4/08
Lecture 11: Zero-Skew Clock Distribution, 3/11/08
Lecture 12: VLSI Test Principles, 3/13/08
Lecture 13: Fault Simulation, 3/27/08
Lecture 14: Testability Measures, 4/1/08
Lecture 15: Combinational Circuit ATPG, 4/8/08
Lecture 16: Design for Testability (DFT): Scan, 4/15/08
Lecture 17: System Test, 4/17/08
Lecture 18: Mixed-Signal and RF Test, 4/22/08

PROJECT, assigned 4/15/08, report due 4/25/08.
Reports: Akpa Jiang Pulukuri Shukoor Yao

HOMEWORKS:
Homework 1, assigned 1/8/08, due 1/15/08: Read the first two articles and then a third one assigned to you as posted here. You are encouraged to explore the literature on the topic of the assigned article. Based on your reading, submit a 4 to 6 page summary of what you learnt.
Class: R. I. Bahar, D. Hammerstrom, J. Harlow, W. H. Joyner Jr., C. Lau, D. Marculescu, A. Orailoglu and M. Pedram,
Architectures for Silicon Nanoelectronics and Beyond, Computer, vol. 40, no. 1, pp. 25-33, January 2007.
Class: T. Munakata, Beyond Silicon: New Computing Paradigms, Comm. ACM, vol. 50, no. 9, pp. 30-34, Sept. 2007.
Akpa's Report on W. Robinett, G. S. Snider, P. J. Kuekes and S. Williams, Computing with a Trillion Crummy Components, Comm. ACM, vol. 50, no. 9, pp. 35-39, Sept. 2007.
Faraz: J. Kong, Computation with Carbon Nanotube Devices, Comm. ACM, vol. 50, no. 9, pp. 40-42, Sept. 2007.
Jiang's Report on R. Stadler, Molecular, Chemical and Organic Computing, Comm. ACM, vol. 50, no. 9, pp. 43-45, Sept. 2007.
Pulukuri's Report on M. T. Bohr, R. S. Chau, T. Ghani and K. Mistry, "The High-k Solution," IEEE Spectrum, vol. 44, no. 10, pp. 29-35, October 2007
Shukoor's Report on J. H. Reif and T. H. Labean, Autonomous Programmable Biomolecular Devices using Self-Assembled DNA Nanostructures, Comm. ACM, vol. 50, no. 9, pp. 46-53, Sept. 2007.
Tan's Report on D. Bacon and D. Leung, Toward a World with Quantum Computers, Comm. ACM, vol. 50, no. 9, pp. 55-59, Sept. 2007.
Yao's Report on H. Abdeldayem and D. A. Frazier, Optical Computing: Need and Challenge, Comm. ACM, vol. 50, no. 9, pp. 60-62, Sept. 2007.
Yogi's Report on D. W. M. Marr and T. Munakata, Micro/Nanofluidic Computing, Comm. ACM, vol. 50, no. 9, pp. 64-68, Sept. 2007.
Grimes: M. Aono, M. Hara and K. Aihara, Amoeba-Based Neurocomputing with Chaotic Dynamics, Comm. ACM, vol. 50, no. 9, pp. 69-72, Sept. 2007.
Homework 2, assigned 2/19/08, due 2/26/08, problems
Homework 3, assigned 3/11/08, due 3/25/08, problems

PREVIOUS OFFERING BY PROF. V. AGRAWAL:
Spring 2007