VLSI Technology, Inc. invites you toparticipate in an intensive course on

User-Designed TM VLSI Systems.September 28, 1981 -- October 23, 1981

Santa Clara, California

User-Designed VLSI I Benefits I VLSI Technology, Inc.

Design Control...User-designed VLSI means you do thedesign. You maintain design control andoptimize the architecture and perfor-mance in ways only an expert in yourfield can. You minimize product devel-opment ti me by designing the systemonce. No need to design it in TTL first andthen have someone else (who doesn'tunderstand it) redesign it for VLSI.

High Productivity...

Through the use of a new designmethodology, pioneered by Prof. CarverMead of Caltech and Lynn Conway ofXerox, digital systems designers andprogrammers can take advantage ofthe high density, high performance, andlow cost of VLSI custom circuits, whileachieving shorter design cycles andgreater productivity than is possible withother custom design approaches. Thisnew methodology, with its improvedproductivity, means that low volumecustom VLSI is now practical!

VLSI Architectures...

The Mead-Conway approach emphas-izes the importance of choosing systemarchitectures appropriate to VLSI, andthe effect of architecture on system per-formance. This philosophy is formalizedin a design methodology that deals withthe critical issues of chip-complexitymanagement, and the top-downdesign of modules and inter-modulecommunications.

This is the design methodology of the'80s and will support your company'sproduct needs for the rest of thedecade.

Benefits of User-Designed VLSIUser-designed VLSI offers significantadvantages over the various designalternatives available to the electronicsystem designer in the 1980's. This tech-nology benefits you, your products, andyour company.

Benefits to Your Company...VLSI-based products offer many advan-tages to your company. They aregenerally more competitive and providehigher margins than products based onolder technologies. User-designed VLSImeans lower design costs and earliermarket entry for your VLSI-basedproducts.

Benefits to Your Products...VLSI can vastly reduce product size andcost while offering increased perfor-mance and unique features that yourcompetition won't be able to duplicateeasily. User-designed VLSI means youcan capitalize on these benefits while atthe same time protecting your proprie-tary system knowledge, keeping designti mes and costs under control, andmaintaining independence of outsidedesign firms. Compared with othertechnology alternatives such as gatearrays. user-designed VLSI offers anapproximate 10 to I density advantage.

Benefits to You...

In a technology that is moving as fast asVLSI, it is tremendously difficult to keepcurrent with the latest advances. Thiscourse will provide you a design-levelunderstanding of VLSI and VLSI CADtools. This course is not an overview; it isnot a survey of what others are doing. Itis intended to provide you with a uniqueset of knowledge and skills that willmake you a much more valuable con-tributor to your company's strategicplans and products. The course requiresonly a modest digital design or pro-gramming background, and allows youand your company to become partici-pants in the LSI/VLSI design revolution.

Take a leadership role — design yoursystems in silicon)

A New Kind of SemiconductorCompanyVLSI Technology was founded to pursuesemiconductor markets that will seesubstantial growth as the industryapproaches Very Large Scale Integra-tion (VLSI). Specifically, the company willconcentrate on products and servicesfor two segments of the MOO market:custom and customizable (or pro-grammable) devices. To competitivelyparticipate in these market segments, asupplier must first have a high-technology base (both people andproducts), and second provide quick-turnaround services. A different kind ofMOS company is needed, and VLSITechnology intends to be the first toproperly service this market.

User-Designed VLSI Services...VLSI Technology will soon be offering acomplete set of capabilities for the user-designed VLSI community training,design tools, and silicon foundry servi-ces. Our course offerings will expand toinclude quarterly courses in both nMOSand CMOS design in 1982. Instructionalmaterial and design tools to supportcourses at your own facility will also beavailable. Those of you interested in set-ting up a VLSI training activity in yourfacility will find this course an extremelygood way to get that activity started.Participants in this course will makeexcellent instructors or tutors for later in-house courses. A remote-entry siliconfoundry service will be operational in1982 to meet both your prototyping andproduction needs.

Other Products and Services..

In addition to user-designed VLSI servicessuch as this course, VLSI Technology willsoon offer a full line of semiconductorservices, including an electronic front-end silicon foundry, electron-beammask making, advanced nMOS andCMOS processes for custom circuits, acustom IC design capability, fast-turnaround processing, and afull-complement of high-density mask-programmable ROMs.

VLSI Technology is a new kind of MOSIC company prepar-ing to support th

demand 1of the 1980's. , ia,1T ►

VLSI Technology, Inc.3101 Scot[ Blvd.

Santa Clara. CA 9505ti4081 727.3108

Course Description

A Unique Course...

This intensive, one-month, multi-mediacourse in user-designed VLSI systemsteaches you to architect, design, andlayout your own proprietary systems onsili con. Specific topics covered includebasic nMOS logic design, two-phaseclocking systems. PLA's and finite statemachines, digital subsystems and chipfloor plans, chip planning and layout,ti ming and power dissipation calcula-tions, memory subsystems, nMOSprocessing and design rules, and newdevelopments in design automation forVLSI. For the first time. this course isbacked by the experience of a semi-conductor company fully committed tothe user-designed VLSI marketplace.

Who is the Course For?

The course is aimed at digital systemsarchitects, designers, and system pro-grammers interested in discovering whatVLSI can do for them and the systemsthey design. No previous experience inIC design is required, however, a modestprogramming background is extremelyvaluable. Systems programmers with noprevious hardware design experienceoften find this course extremely interest-ing and rewarding.

An Intensive Course...

This four-week course will require your fullattention. The first week will be devotedto lectures and homework assignments.The following three weeks will bedevoted almost entirely to work on anactual IC design project. Following theconclusion of the course, the completedchips that result from the class will befabricated by VLSI Technology, andreturned to the students for testing. Allfabrication and packaging for thesecourse-generated designs is included inthe course fees.

Quality Instruction...In addition to live instruction by DouglasFairbairn and other VII personnelinvolved in CAD tool development andchip design, a number of well-knownexperts in the VLSI design field appearduring the video tape segments of thecourse. These instructors include Prof.Carver Mead of Caltech, Lynn Conwayof Xerox, Profs. Robert Mathews, JohnNewkirk, and James Clark of Stanford,Prof. Charles Seitz of Caltech, and JackHolloway of Symbolics, Inc.

The instructors for the course havedebugged the material over the pasttwo years while teaching VLSI designcourses of M.I.T., Caltech, Stanford, U.C.Berkeley, Xerox, Hewlett-Packard, andEvans and Sutherland Computer Corporation. Similar courses in theMead-Conway VLSI design methodol-ogy have been, or are now beingtaught, at such industrial sites as DigitalEquipment Corp., Varian. Bell Labs, andmany others. In addition, courses basedon this methodology are now beingoffered at over 60 major universities inthe U.S. and Europe.

A Rich Environment...

An exciting aspect of the course will bethat it is the first one of its kind to beoffered by a semiconductor companyat its own facility. You will have contactwith a wide variety of people active inboth VLSI design and VLSI design tooldevelopment. This rich environment willcontribute greatly to the learningprocess.

Your Design in Silicon!The design phase of the course is anessential part of the overall learningexperience. It is only during this phasethat you understand how the tradeoffsof architecture, circuit design, andlayout interact and where the real chal-lenges and opportunities of VLSI lie. It'sthe kind of understanding you will neverget by reading trade journals andattending seminars. The final step thatlends excitement and credibility to thedesign phase is that the circuits aremerged together on an E-beam maskset and fabricated using a high-technology nMOS process. Theindividual student projects are thenpackaged in standard dual-in-linepackages and returned to you for test-ing after the conclusion of the course.Don't miss the opportunity to have yourideas cast into silicon!

Return Home with YourDesign in Silicon.

Supporting Material...The course text is Introduction to VLSISystems by Mead and Conway(Addison-Wesley, 1980). In addition tothe text, we have a complete set of lec-ture notes that complement the videotapes used for some of the lectures.Other reading material from the currentliterature will be furnished asappropriate.

Course Schedule and Format...

This course will be held in a speciallyequipped lab and classroom at VLSITechnology in Santa Clara, California.Unlike other courses you may be familiarwith, this one will require your full-timeattention for four weeks. The first week ofclass will involve lectures, discussions,and homework assignments. The follow-ing three weeks is the project phase ofthe course and will be devoted to workon an IC design project of your ownchoosing. Typical projects completed bystudents consist of a few hundred to afew thousand transistors. These circuitsmight be a serial multiplier, a special-purpose graphics function, acontent-addressable memory, or a pro-ject of similar complexity.

Normal class hours will be 9 a.m. to5 p.m., 5 days a week. The CAD labora-tory facilities will be available from 7a.m. until 11 p. m., 6 days a week.

The InstructorThe principal instructor for the course isDouglas Fairbairn. Mr. Fairbairn has beenactive in the user-designed VLSI fieldsince 1976 and helped develop thedesign methodology used in this coursewhile working at the Xerox Palo AltoResearch Center. He has designedLSI chips from architecture to finallayout, co-authored a CAD program forVLSI layout, and taught VLSI design atXerox, Caltech, Hewlett-Packard, andEvans & Sutherland Computer Corpora-tion. He also has significant experienceas a systems engineer, including a var-iety of distributed processing experience.

Mr. Fairbairn helped found VLSI Technol-ogy in 1980, and now serves as Managerof VLSI Engineering. He is responsible forall VLSI course and design-tool devel-opment as well as all silicon-foundryrelated software.

Course Outline

A Perspective on VLSI Design

Before diving into the detailed designmaterial, it is important to gain an over-all perspective of how VLSI design isdifferent from designing chips of lessercomplexity. One of the major points ofdifference is just that — complexity, Wewill focus on the importance of hierar-chical design and regular structures asan answer to this fundamental problem.

Introduction to nMOS LogicDesign...

We open the technical discussion withtwo lectures on the basic design tech-niques used in oMOS logic design. Wecover switch logic, gate logic, stick dia-grams, device ratios, and basic designstrategies.

Registers and Two-Phase ClockingSystems...A straight-forward and reliable clockingsystem is introduced for driving synchro-nous digital systems. Exampleapplications include a hardware first-in,first-out stack.

PLAs and Finite State Machines...PIAs provide a way of mechanizing setsof arbitrary Boolean equations in ageometrical and conceptually regularway. Moreover, with the addition ofclocking, they become finite statemachines. Detailed examples are given.Digital Subsystems and Chip FloorPlans...The basic logic building blocks of nMOSdesign including ALUs, shifters, registercells, function blocks, etc, are described.Chip Planning and Layout...

The importance of an overall chip planis emphasized, with pa rticular attentionfocused on the communications pathsof the chip. Detailed examples areprovided.

nMOS Scaling and its Implicationsfor Design...

Much has been discussed in recentyears concerning the physical limits toscaling. Here we'll take a look at thescaling process and see what effects itwill likely have on design.

Ti ming, Delays, and PowerDissipation...

Calculation of propagation delaysthrough logic structures and resistiveinterconnects are covered. Techniquesfor minimizing these delays at both thesystem and circuit level are explored.The role of detailed circuit simulation inthe design process is also described.Calculation and minimization of powerdissipation is covered along with powerbusing considerations.

Memory Subsystems...A wide variety of memory subsystemsare explored, including shift registers,static RAM cells, and dynamic RAMcells. These approaches are comparedin terms of size, speed, power dissipation,and ease of design. Design examplesare provided.

System Design Examples...Examples from a variety of disciplinesincluding signal processing, general-purpose computation, and graphicsprocessing are presented.

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nMOS Processing and DesignRules...

We introduce the basic process steps ofnMOS fabrication and relate those tothe development of the geometricaldesign rules that guide the layout ofintegrated circuits.Design Automation...

Progress in design automation tools iscritical to the widespread adoption ofuser-designed VLSI. During the course wewill look at the design automation alter-natives in detail and study some of thenew developments such as siliconassemblers and compilers, Sticks sym-bolic layout systems, procedural designtechniques, etc. Students will use someof these tools in the design and analysisof their own project chip during thecourse.

The Silicon Foundry...

We will examine the silicon foundry con-cept and describe its role in the industry.Multi-project chip wafers, the CaltechIntermediate Form (CIF), standard testdevices, and silicon implementation ser-vices will be among the topicsdescribed.

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