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Abstract
The Very Large-Scale Integration (VLSI) circuit design is a promising field for undergraduate students hoping to explore job opportunities in electronics circuit design companies. Therefore, several institutes in India offer VLSI courses to electronics engineering undergraduate students. In recent times, because of the pandemic, online classes appeared as an effective method of teaching; this helped in running of academic schedule smoothly without hampering the students’ learning process. In this paper online teaching content is presented to help the student learn digital VLSI circuit design using an open-source tool. This course content is particularly helpful in understanding the theoretical and practical design of a Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS)-based logic function, with minimal effort by the faculty without access to campus software. The content starts with a digital logic function and its switch-level representation into PULL-UP and PULL-DOWN networks. Then the switch-level circuit with the help of Euler’s graph is translated into a stick diagram and then converted into a layout cell using the lambda design rule. An interesting approach to choosing the gate sequence in the stick diagram from Euler’s graph, and the simulation result of the layout cell are presented and discussed. The approach helped the students in understanding full custom CMOS logic function design, test, and validation, with less effort and time. The survey shows that 86% of the students were satisfied with the content and that the course content helped to achieve an 81% average pass percentage in the two online semesters.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author would like to express his gratitude to VIT-AP management for the help extended to the teaching process and also reviewers for their comments and suggestion to improve the paper’s content.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
The presented work requires only published research papers in the area.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Arun Kumar Sinha
Arun Kumar Sinha received a BTech degree in electronics and telecommunication engineering from NIT Kurukshetra, India, and an MTech (honors) degree in process control engineering from the Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, India, in 2004, and 2007, respectively. In 2013, he completed his PhD in electronics engineering from the University of Genova, Italy. He has an overall 10 years of experience in industry and teaching at Agilent Technologies (Gurugram, India), Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology (New Delhi, India), Jaypee Institute of Information Technology (Noida, India), Mekelle University (Mekelle, Ethiopia), and post-doctoral research experience at Federal University of Santa Catarina (Florianopolis, Brazil). Currently, he is working associate professor at VITAP University, Andhra Pradesh, India. He has taught subjects such as fundamentals of electrical and electronics engineering (UG), principle of electrical engineering (UG), VLSI system design (UG), analog VLSI design (UG), analog IC design (PG), and analog devices and circuits (UG), process dynamics and multivariable control (PG), real-time control and embedded Systems (PG), electrical machines & instruments (UG), Basic electronics device and circuits (UG), electronic instruments and measurement (UG), principle of electrical engg (UG), bio-medical instrumentation (UG), and electrical measurements (UG). He authored 20 papers in international journals/ conferences, 3 patents, and 1 conference proceeding as an editor. He also got two best paper awards. He is an IEEE member, Hyderabad section, India. His research interests include intelligent algorithms, integrated circuit design, digital and analog VLSI, semiconductor devices, and mathematical modeling.