1. VLSI Industry
Why 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.
8. Full Custom Design
• Each circuit element
carefully “handcrafted”
• Huge design effort
• High Performance
• Typically used for high-
volume applications
• Example : AND Gate IC
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.
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
What
do
you
Study
…………….
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 !
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
