ELEC 7770-001 Advanced VLSI Design
Spring 2012, MWF 2PM, Broun 113
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_Spr12/course.html

FINAL EXAM: Wednesday, May 2, 2012, 4:00-6:30PM, Brown 113, open-book, problems.

READING ASSIGNMENTS:
Assigned 1/9/12:
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. J. Kong, Computation with Carbon Nanotube Devices, Comm. ACM, vol. 50, no. 9, pp. 40-42, Sept. 2007.
4. R. Stadler, Molecular, Chemical and Organic Computing, Comm. ACM, vol. 50, no. 9, pp. 43-45, Sept. 2007.
5. 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
6. 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.
7. D. Bacon and D. Leung, Toward a World with Quantum Computers, Comm. ACM, vol. 50, no. 9, pp. 55-59, Sept. 2007.
8. H. Abdeldayem and D. A. Frazier, Optical Computing: Need and Challenge, Comm. ACM, vol. 50, no. 9, pp. 60-62, Sept. 2007.
9. D. W. M. Marr and T. Munakata, Micro/Nanofluidic Computing, Comm. ACM, vol. 50, no. 9, pp. 64-68, Sept. 2007.
10. M. Aono, M. Hara and K. Aihara, Amoeba-Based Neurocomputing with Chaotic Dynamics, Comm. ACM, vol. 50, no. 9, pp. 69-72, Sept. 2007.

LECTURES:
Lecture 1: Introduction, 1/18/12
Lecture 2: VLSI Yield and Moore's Law, 1/20/12
. . . Gordon Moore's articles, 1965, 1975, 1995
Lecture 3: Verification, 1/23/10 . . .
. . . Choice of Tests for Verification and Equivalence Checking . . .
. . . Characteristic Polynomial Method for Verification . . .
. . . Boolean Satisfiability . . .
Lecture 4: Timing Analysis and STA, 1/30/12 . . .
Lecture 5: Timing Verification and Optimization, 2/6/12
Lecture 6: Retiming, 2/10/12 . . .
Lecture 7: Constraint Graph and Retiming Solution, 2/15/12 . . .
Lecture 8: Clock Skew Problem, 2/22/12
Lectures 9 and 10: Linear Programming - A Mathematical Optimization Technique, for self review
LP Solvers:
. . . PHPSimplex Online Solver
. . . LINDO Download
Lecture 11: A Linear Programming Solution to Clock Constraint Problem, 2/27/12
Lecture 12: Zero-Skew Clock Routing, 3/2/12 . . .
Lecture 13: Gate Sizing, 3/5/12
Lecture 14: Analog and RF Testing, 3/9/12 . . .
Lecture 15: model-Based and Alternate Tests, 3/26/12 . . .
. . . P. N. Variyam et al., "Prediction of Analog Performance . . .," IEEE Trans. CAD, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 349-361, Mar 2002
. . . H.-G. Stratigopoulos and Y. Makris, "Error Moderation . . .," IEEE Trans. CAD, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 339-351, Feb 2008
Lecture 16: Power and Ground, 4/4/12 . . .
. . . J. Fu et al., "VLSI On-Chip Power/Ground Network . . .," Proc. ASP-DAC, 2005, pp. 735-738
Lecture 17: Soft Errors and Fault-Tolerant Design, 4/9/12 . . .
. . . Robust System Design with Built-In Soft-Error Resilience . . ., Computer, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 43-52, February 2005
. . . The Byzantine Generals, by D. Dolev, L. Lamport, M. Pease and R. Shostak, Chapter 12, B. K. Bhargava (Ed.), Concurrency Control and Reliability in Distributed Systems, pp. 348-369 (Van Nostrand, 1987)
Lecture 18: Formal Verification of Digital Systems, by Suraj Sindia, 4/11/12 . . .

HOMEWORK:
Homework 1, assigned 1/9/12, due 1/18/12: Write a half-page summary of each of the 10 articles in the reading assignment. The summary must include (1) Most important idea in the article and (2) At least one new reference published during 2007-2012.
Homework 2, assigned 2/22/12, due 2/29/12
Homework 3, assigned 3/7/12, due 3/21/12
Homework 4, assigned 3/26/12, due 4/2/12
Homework 5, assigned 4/11/12, revised 4/12/12, due 4/23/12
Homework 6, assigned 4/19/12, due 4/25/12, Guidelines, Contact: P. Venkataramani

PROJECT, assigned 4/2/12, final report due 4/27/12.

PREVIOUS OFFERING BY PROF. V. AGRAWAL:
Spring 2010
Spring 2008
Spring 2007