Beaver Works Summer Institute will offer this course on open source semiconductor design and fabrication this summer. This course will give students practical experience with the building blocks of today’s electronic world—knowledge that will benefit the student no matter what they decide to pursue academically. Students will receive hands-on experience on how to design and arrange semiconductors on a nanometer scale to perform a specific function. Students will start with a blank canvas (semiconductor substrate) and learn how to take a specification through the entire design process—including foundry manufacturability. Once complete, the student’s design will be sent to a foundry for fabrication. Six months later we’ll host a class reunion and the students will be provided a development kit with their custom design etched in silicon–a testament to the student’s creativity and hard work and a milestone to be treasured for a lifetime.
This program consists of two components: an online & pre-requisite course open to all interested students and a four-week summer program for a select group of students. See our FAQ for most up to date schedule.
There is overlap with the microelectronics course, including basic electronics, but this course will focus more semiconductor theory, MOSFET/CMOS fabrication. Course instruction by industry practitioners with context from academia and government.
Week 1: Recap of online prerequisites
- Foundational info on PN junctions and depletion region
- Breadboarding and custom Printed Circuit Board (PCB) design
- Introduction to capstone project
Week 2: Introduction to Hardware Description Layer (HDL) tools
- Introduction to Verilog and TL Verilog
- Practical exercises to familiarize students with syntax
Week 3: Synthesis
- Familiarization with key steps required to make a functioning chip
- Capstone project development
Week 4: Student Project Development (teams of 3 or 4 students)
- Finalize capstone project and ready for tapeout
- Aim Academy intro to Photonic Integrated Circuits
Location
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA 02139
United States
Contact: bwsi-admin@mit.edu
Program
