What is VLSI and Why You Should Care

Dr. Joseph Elias Adjunct Faculty, ECE Department Modeling MTS, Cypress Semiconductor

What is this? Whatever it is, looks simple.

WELL, IT GETS SLIGHTLY MORE COMPLICATED WHAT IS THIS? SEE ANY ODDITY?

STILL NOT CLEAR? CANT SEE THE FOREST FROM THE TREES?

NOW?

NOW?

65nm SRAM memory cell

Who am I?
Graduated from UK, 1989, BSEE
Electro-magnetics, EMC, one laser class No hard-core semiconductor class

Masters, Ph.D., Rice University

Laser interaction with semiconductors Semiconductor research with Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments, 1995-2000 Cypress Semiconductor, 2000-present UK, 2000-present I was sitting in your seat 15-20 years ago I thought I was going to be a laser / EM engineer
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Why you should care?

One day you will graduate, then what? Do you want to apply your previous class work? What are your options for jobs or grad school?
Possibilities you may not have thought of

EE584 Intro to VLSI may help your career decision

But Ive heard the class is hard..

EE584 is taught as a segue to the real world
We use industry-standard tools Class work is encouraged to be done at Cypress

Job prospects from recent students:

Cypress has hired 19 (16 full time, 3 co-ops) TI, Intel, Cisco, Cadence, Silicon Valley start-ups These are high-paying, cutting-edge companies

Hard classes are relative to your expectations

Your competition: thousands of EE grads each year Are you going to settle for lower echelon jobs?

But can I do the work?

Yes, if you like devices, circuits, programming,

But I can get a good paying jobs w/o much effort

Chicken and egg
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What is expected from an engineer?

Hours:
8am 6pm (nominally) 7am 12am (sometimes)

Skills:
Typing Speaking Reading Programming (SKILL, Perl, Ruby, Shell, XL, ) Flexibility (try new things) Paying attention, energy, enthusiasm Playing well with others

List is independent of your specialty

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What can VLSI do for me?

Jobs
Industry is cyclical, but drives economy

Grad school
New technologies to replace Silicon needed

VLSI can lead you to:

West Coast (OR, CA) East Coast (NY, MA, NJ, NC) Midwest (IL, MN) Southwest (TX, AZ) International (India, Ireland, Germany, Denmark, England, Japan, Taiwan, China)

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What do you learn/use in VLSI?

Physics Chemistry Software Presentations Documentation What is important in order to get a job MWF 9am MWF 9am

FALL EE584 VLSI INTRO SPRING EE589 ADVANCED VLSI

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BACKUP

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What are possible jobs I could do?

Software
Web interfaces: financials, data mining Scripts to automate manual tasks

Hardware
Production : large volumes (hundreds millions) Engineering : small volumes (one, two, ten)

Writing
Documentation of what you just did Simple, yet hard to accomplish

Speaking
Management, communicate effectively Believable, trustworthy
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What is a semiconductor?
Small switch Put lots of them together, you get a chip Used in
Cell phones Computers Toasters Cars Everything

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How much does an engineer get paid?

2001 IEEE Salary Survey: Median $93k (n=9,700)
Experience level This is not a starting salary Typically takes 10 years work experience Education level Ph.D. = Master + (3 to 5) Master = Bachelor + (3 to 5)

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Recent Trends
250 100

Boom
200

90 80 70

Sales ($B)

Boom
100

40 30 20 10

50

Recession
0

-10

Recession Recession Recession

1990 1995 2000

-20 -30 -40 -50 2005

-50 1980

1985

Year

Percent Change

150

Boom

Boom

Boom

60 50

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How Many Chips?

10 MILLION WAFERS * ~500 CHIPS / WAFER = 5 BILLION CHIPS / QUARTER EACH CHIP $0.50 $50
Wafers (Millions) vs. Time 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8
1999-3 1999-4 2000-1 2000-2 2000-3 2000-4 2001-1 2001-2 2001-3 2001-4 2002-1 2002-2

Year-Quarter

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Historical Trends
250 400 350 200 300 250 200 100 150 100 50 50 0 -50 -50 1950 -100 2010

1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

Year

Percent Change

150

Sales ($B)

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Who Hires VLSI-Types?

Semiconductor companies
2001 Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2001 Company Sales Intel 23.5 ST Micro 6.4 Toshiba 6.1 TI 6.0 Samsung 5.2 Motorola 4.8 NEC 4.8 Infineon 4.6 Philips 4.4 AMD 3.9

Fab-less Design Houses

2001 Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2001 Company Sales Qualcomm 1.24 Nvidia 1.21 Xilinx 1.15 Via 1.01 Broadcom 0.96 Altera 0.84 Cirrus Logic 0.53 ATI Techn 0.52 Media Tek 0.45 QLogic 0.36

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Size, Speed Trends

70 60 50 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018

40 30 20 10 0 2000

Year

Present solutions will no longer work in 2005 Scale: human hair 100,000 nm, red blood cell 5,000nm

Speed (GHz)

Gate (nm)

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