This document provides an overview of careers in VLSI (Very Large Scale Integrated Circuit) design. It defines what VLSI is and discusses why there is high demand for VLSI professionals given India's growing VLSI industry. It outlines various roles in the field like design engineer, product engineer, and test engineer. It provides advice on where to start as a student, how to get chosen for jobs, and how rewarding a career in VLSI can be. The document concludes by emphasizing opportunities in the field and need for academia-industry partnerships to better prepare students.

1. Design your career in VLSI
M. Raja Reddy

2. Outline
• What is VLSI?
• Why VLSI?
• Where is the demand?
• What roles to choose?
• How much rewarding can it be?
• How to get chosen?
• Where to start?
• How to deal with the VLSI circuits?
• Career opportunities for fresher's
• Internship advice
• Conclusions

3. What is VLSI?
VERY LARGE SCALE INTEGRATED CIRCUIT (VLSI)
Technique where many circuit components and
the wiring that connects them are manufactured
simultaneously into a compact, reliable and
inexpensive chip.

4. How large is Very Large?
• SSI (small scale integration)
– 7400 series, 10-100 transistors
• MSI (medium scale integration)
– 74000 series 100-1000
• LSI (large scale integration)
– 1,000-10,000 transistors
• VLSI (very large scale integration)
– > 10,000 transistors
• ULSI/GLSI (some disagreement)

5. Why VLSI?
• Semiconductor chip is demanding to accommodate with high density of
components and speed of processing - needs high caliber brain
knowledge to design VLSI circuits.
• VLSI field offers ample opportunities for professionals with subject-
matter expertise in electronics, both in terms of challenging roles and
monetary rewards.
• India's VLSI industry is growing at a rate of 20% annually.
• Semiconductor Association India predicts 1.5 million jobs by 2015 in
India
• There is no dearth of job for VLSI designers in India. In fact, the demand
is in excess when compared to supply.
• “Even though around 250,000 engineers are graduating in electronics
and other related streams every year, less than 3% of them are equipped
with the knowledge and skills needed for the VLSI industry.”

6. Why You Should Care VLSI?
 One day you will graduate, then what?
 What you can get from your education?
 What are your options?
 Possibilities you might not have thought of now
What VLSI can do for you?
 Although India traditionally does not have a large semiconductor
waferfab presence, but there are large number of VLSI design centres.
 Knowledge of VLSI design can lead you to anywhere in the world.

7. Spectrum of Approaches to VLSI

11. • Specifications
• I/O, Goals and Objectives, Function, Costs
• Architectural Description
• VLHD, Verilog, Behavioral, Large Blocks
• Logic Design
• Gates plus Registers
• Circuit Design
• Transistors sized for power and speed
• Discrete Logic, Technology Mapping
• Layout
• Size, Interconnect, Parasitics
Levels of Design

12. 12
More than Moore: DiversificationMoreMoore:Miniaturization
BaselineCMOS:CPU,Memory,Logic Biochips
Sensors
Actuators
[e.g. MEMS]
HV
Power
Analog/RF Passives
130nm
90nm
65nm
45nm
32nm
22nm
16 nm
.
.
.
V
Information
Processing
Digital content
System-on-chip
(SoC)
Beyond CMOS
Interacting with people and environment
Non-digital content
System-in-package
(SiP)
Source: 2011 ITRS - Exec. Summary
The Concept of Moore’s Law and More

13. Evolution of VLSI Design System Architecture

14. MICROWIND
TOOL DESIGN
FLOW

15. India’s Emergence as a Global R&D Hub
● Availability of High-Quality Low-Cost S&T Manpower
● Over 100 of Fortune 500 Companies have set-up R&D bases in India.
● These R&D bases have been remarkably cost-effective
● Over 1000 patents filed, The new phenomenon of “brain-gain”
● Increase in demand for highly skilled resources in frontier areas of IT,
S&T, and VLSI Tech
● 4000 to 5000 VLSI Engineers needed per year (Current output : About
300 per year).
● How to scale up numbers and What is the real need?

16. What the Industries need?
• Students who are “Industry friendly” and not necessarily “Industry
ready”
• Have the answers for “Why” and “What” and the Industries will train
them on “How”.
• What is the process of logic synthesis?
• What are constraints and why are they important?
• What is a path?
• What are setup and hold times?
• Why does an interconnect produce a delay?
• Good in basic and advanced digital VLSI design/Comp..Sc concepts.
• Building complex functions from basic gates/flops
• Data structures, algorithms and compilers.
• Knowledge on VLSI design flows
• Full custom, ASIC, FPGA
• Concept of libraries, timing etc
• Typically used primitives such as DFF.
• Hands-on Industrially oriented project---A definite bonus.
• Skills on researching a given subject---Need to know how to find
information.
• Soft skills---Team work, Communication

17. Industry Expectations of New Hires
Technical Skills
– Technical expertise in specific field.
– Analytical capabilities.
– Continuing knowledge growth.
– Internship/co-op experience
– Design experience
– Multidisciplinary experience
Non-technical Skills
– Teamwork/interpersonal skills
– Written and oral communication skills, email communication
– Presentation and selling skills
– Understanding of economics, value and cost
– Business and travel etiquette
– Managing without authority, leadership

18. Where is the demand?
• Texas Instruments
• PMC Sierra.
• Infineon
• Alliance Semiconductor
• Freescale Semiconductor
• Analog Devices
• Cadence
• Synopsys
• Mentor Graphics
• HCL
• Intel
• Lucent
• Micron Tech
• National Semiconductor
• Motorola
• NXP Semiconductor
• Qualcomm
• Sasken
• Atrenta
• Conexant,
• Moschip
• Cradle Tech
• Syplicity
• Wipro
• TCS
• eInfochips.
• IBM
• LSI
• AMD
• Many more
Major recruiters in this field :

19. How to get chosen?
• For VLSI design, companies prefer BE/B.Tech, ME/M.Tech and PhD
holders with specialization in electronics, telecommunications and
computer engineering domains.
– Typically, should have hands-on experience in systems design, digital
application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) design, physical design,
mixed-signal IC design, VHDL or Verilog or system C (very high-speed
integrated circuit), VLSI design, circuit design and simulations,
microcontrollers, digital PCB design and routing.
– The recruitment is based on a written test followed by an interview.
• The subject of VLSI design is quite vast. It is not fair to expect both
breadth and depth from a fresh graduates.
• At the undergraduate level, it is expected to have good understanding
of fundamental concepts.
• Good project work with presentation skills, team leadership makes
you to get selected easily.
• Publications in IEEE conference/standard reviewed journals will be an
excellent addition.

20. Where to start?
• Get industry-friendly before getting on the job
• The syllabus in your curricula may not enough to fetch you a job in the
VLSI industry. You need to have an extra knowledge in VLSI to get
selected.
• For working in this field, it is mandatory to have in-depth knowledge of
semiconductors, devices, circuits, system with good computing skills.
Though an engineering degree is the obvious qualification to earn,
graduate and postgraduates in physics also qualify to become an
engineer. The physics of semiconductor devices is the fundamental basis
of VLSI.
• When to start? The earlier, the better. Academically, the right time to
acquaint yourself with this niche field of electronics is start early say in
second year
• Solid Verilog/VHDL skills, familiarity with front-end design cycle,
knowledge of synthesis and simulation tools, sound digital design
fundamentals and knowledge of microprocessors would be an added
advantage for any aspiring candidate.

21. What roles to choose?
The main job roles in this industry are:
• Design engineer:
– Takes specifications, defines architecture, does circuit design, provide
consultancy for layout, tapes out the chip to the foundry and evaluates the
prototype once the chip comes back from the lab.
• Product Engineer :
– Responsible for production release and works as a team leader of the project. He
ensures manufacturability, develops characterization plan, assembly guidelines,
quality and reliability plan. Evaluates the chip with the design and verification
engineer, through characterization, from the reliability qualification and
manufacturing yield, point of view (statistical data analysis).
• Test Engineer :
– Develops test plan for the chip based on specifications and data sheet, creates
characterization and production program for the bench test or the ATE
(Automatic Test Equipment), designs test board hardware, correlates ATE
results with the bench results to validate silicon to compare with simulation
results. The work of Product and Test engineer are interdependent. Test engineer
work closely with Product engineer to ensure smooth release to production and
post release support.

22. What roles to choose?
• Applications/Systems Engineer :
– Defines new products from system point of view at the customer's end,
based on marketing input. Responsibility is to ensure the chip works in the
system designed or used by the customers, and complies with standards.
• Process Engineer :
– This is a highly specialized function which involves new wafer process
development, device modeling and lots of research and development
projects.
• Packaging Engineer:
– This is another highly specialized job function generally part of System
Engineering team. Develops precision packaging technology, new package
designs for the chips, does the characterization of new packages, and does
electrical modeling of the new designs.
• CAD Engineer :
– This is an engineering function that supports the design engineering
function. Responsible for acquiring, maintaining or developing all CAD
tools used by all other engineers. Responsible to evaluate and integrate
new tools in the company specific flow

23. How much rewarding can it be?
• Generally, salaries are based on individual skillsets and qualifications.
• An engineer with a bachelor’s degree can expect anything between Rs
6 to 15 lakhs per annum. Many companies give higher salaries to
engineers with M.Tech/PhD degrees.
• Design engineers are the most sought after because of the industry’s
emphasis on continuous new product development, miniaturisation
and innovation in integration.
• Based on continual performance, knowledge and competence, you can
expect steep growth in remuneration as well as roles and
responsibilities.
• The growth prospects for professionals in Indian companies are
definitely promising given the scarcity of talent.
– An young engineer can easily grow to become a team leader or project
manager in a span of six to nine years. The ability to handle multitasking
jobs may be a defining factor.
– As you gain experience, this field offers one of the best growth potentials,
both on the technical as well as management front. Though the global
recession has hugely affected starting salaries in the private sector at
present, the previous year’s industry feedback reveals an average pay
package will be > Rs 15 lakhs per annum for a four to five year experienced
professional

24. Conclusions
• Many opportunities for talented, sincere and hardworking students.
• Academia and industry should work in partnership for win-win
situation
• Faculty should be from both academic and industry
• Government should support in opening the IITs and other research
laboratories for student projects to work with well equipped facilities
and the staff
• Academic curriculum preparation needs industry participation and
should change inline with industry requirements from time to time.

25. Thanks For Kind Attention