Since interconnect is becoming a limiting constraint for microelectronics technology, VLSI design curricula and supporting CAD tools require significant change. We describe the introduction of Rensselaer’s Interconnect Performance Estimator (RIPE) into a VLSI design class.

⎯ This paper presents a case study on the challenges of teaching state-of-the-art design to undergraduate students. The issues encountered are exposed specifically through the discussion of the development and teaching of a comprehensive first course in Very Large Scale Integrated Circuit (VLSI) design at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ). Index Terms ⎯ Design Education, Undergraduate Education,...

The trend of VLSI CAD tool development evolves towards functionally specialized, methodology-dependent and technologydependent. Confusion can easily arise during the design process because of the proliferation of CAD tools and the mammoth amounts of design data. This is aggravated by the fact that different CAD tools are usually created by different vendors with different interface styles. As a...

Electronic Systems are the core of everyday lives. They form an integral part in financial networks, mass transit, telephone systems, power plants and personal computers. Electronic systems are increasingly based on complex VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) integrated circuits. Initial electronic design automation is concerned with the design and production of VLSI systems. The next important...

This paper considers the rate optimal VLSI design of a recursive data ow graph (DFG). Previous research on rate optimal scheduling is not directly applicable to VLSI design. We propose a technique that inserts bu er registers to allow overlapped rate optimal implementation of VLSI. We illustrate that nonoverlapped schedules can be implemented by a simpler control path but with a larger unfoldin...

This paper introduces a novel architecture for expert systems performing diagnostic problem-solving. The architecture is called \categorization-based" because problems are solved by relating them to relevant categories of known cases using deep knowledge about the application domain. The eeectiveness of the architecture has been validated by an implemented expert system called CHATKB, which doe...