Hochschule Kempten      
Fakultät Elektrotechnik      
Microelectronics       Fachgebiet Elektronik, Prof. Vollrath      

Microelectronics

01 Introduction

Prof. Dr. Jörg Vollrath


Video of lecture 01


Länge: 1:02:33 min
0:1:59 How to design a chip

0:4:1 From Schematic to chip

0:5:19 Packaged opamp chip

0:11:24 Lecturer

0:11:24 Industry experience DRAM

0:15:1 Area Electronics

0:16:31 Course Contents

0:20:46 Microelectronics Wikipedia

0:21:49 Relevance for you

0:25:34 Big Data in Microelectronics

0:27:9 Companies

0:30:39 Semiconductor Sales Leader

0:33:14 References

0:37:34 Summary

0:40:39 Donwload LTSPICE, Electric

0:43:14 Electric

0:46:38 Transistor Evolution Intel Core i7

0:56:39 MOSFET Transistor

0:59:29 Design a processor: The Pentium Chronicles

Video of lecture 02 22.03.2021


Länge: 1:02:33 min
0:2:53 MOSFET layout, schematic, cross section

0:7:53 Cross section

0:11:23 Layout. Minimum feature size

0:16:8 Transistor 16 F^2

0:18:43 Laboratory 1/2 NFET drawing

0:21:53 Start Electric

0:23:23 Close libraries

0:24:8 Download and load lib and cmosedu_models.txt

0:26:13 Schematic view

0:27:33 Preferences

0:29:43 Scale, feature size, lambda

0:31:33 SPICE options

0:38:43 Export Preferences

0:41:33 Where are the files?

0:45:27 Start LTSPICE

0:47:26 cmosedu_models.txt location

0:51:23 Delete .options nopage

0:52:28 Run LTSPICE

0:54:33 Output curve

0:55:43 Transfer curve

0:59:13 Layout creation

1:1:33 NMOS transistor

1:2:19 N-contact, gate contact

1:3:33 Set transitor length

1:5:3 Properties window to set size

1:6:3 Wire up

1:8:26 Move close together

1:9:33 Set SPICE model

1:10:43 Create Export VG, VD, VS

1:11:53 Selection change with click

1:13:31 SPICE text for sources and simulation

1:14:21 Bulk or well contact

1:15:23 Design rule check

Overview

Welcome

Lecturer

  • Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jörg Vollrath
    Consultations: T221 Tue 11:30-12:30
    Please give advanced notice via email
    Joerg.vollrath@hs-kempten.de
    Joerg.vollrath@ieee.org
  • Microelectronics
    • Lecture 2 SWS: Mo 10:00-11:30
    • Laboratory 2 SWS: Mo 8:00 - 9:30
    • 30% Laboratory: Report
    • 70% Exam: 90 min written exam
      • Non programmable calculator
      • Open book
Microelectronics: Replace a system or circuit board with one ASIC chip
Install VLSI Design System and LTSPICE on your Laptop

Memory Products 64M..2G Bit DRAM

Activities:

Area: Electronics

Analog

Digital

Microcontroller

Software

CircuitsSchematics FPGA RaspberryPi JavaScript


Raspberry Pi 2 Model B v1.1 top new (bg cut out)
Simulation
 VHDL
IoT Node.JS
Integrated Circuits Vision Electronics Laboratory Big Data
Data converter
 Control
 Telepresence
 Open Access E-Learning

Open Access E-Learning

Course contents

  • History and key design metrics
  • IC manufacturing and design rules
  • CMOS logic (Digital)
    • Sequential and Combinatorial Logic
    • Noise, propagation delay and power consumption
  • Semiconductor memories
  • Interconnects, clocking, timing and test
  • Chip input and output circuits, Interface
  • VLSI-design methodologies
 Tools:
  • Simulation: LTSPICE
  • Layout: Electric
  • Design with FPGA: Xilinx Webpack VHDL
  • IC-Fabrication: Tiny Tapeout
Laboratory: Build a serial processing element
Microelectronics

Microelectronics Wikipedia

Microelectronics relevance for you

Microelectronics Companies

Design and manufacturing
Design IP company: ARM

EDA Companies:
There are design and manufacturing companies (Intel, Samsung, Infineon, Bosch), manufacturing companies (TSMC, UMC, Globalfoundries), fabless design companies (Broadcomm, Qualcomm) doing only chip design and IP companies (ARM) selling a chip design for reuse and customization.
Chip design can be done in 3 month, manufacturing needs 3 month and test and verification needs 3 month and volume ramp up another 3 months resulting in cycle times for new products of up to 1 year. A wafer processing to an IC costs about 1000.- $. A mask set for patterning costs between 10k..10 Mio $.
Electronic design automation (EDA) companies provide software to enable succesfull chip design and manufacuring tools. Automation in chip design and manufacturing with software and hardware is needed to make it possible to successfully make changes to one transistor in the schematic and transfer it without error to a manufacturing process.
Manual steps are much to error prone to be used. Verification of all steps is needed to be successful.

Top 10 Semiconductor Sales Leader (Gartner, 2024)

2024 Rank2023 RankVendor2024 Revenue2024 Market Share (%)2023 Revenue2024-2023 Growth (%)
12Samsung Electronics6652410.64094262.5
21Intel491897.9491170.1
35NVIDIA459887.32505383.6
46SK hynix428246.82302786
53Qualcomm323585.22922510.7
612Micron Technology278434.41612372.7
74Broadcom276414.4256137.9
87AMD239483.8223077.4
98Apple188803180524.6
109Infineon Technologies160012.617022-6
Others (outside top 10)27477543.92634834.3
Total Market62597110052996418.1
Top 10 Semiconductor Vendors by Revenue, Worldwide, 2024 (Millions of U.S. Dollars)

Source: Gartner (February 2025)

References

CMOS: Circuit Design, Layout, and Simulation,
Revised Second Edition, R. Jacob Baker, Wiley,
ISBN 978-0-470-22941-5, Revised 2nd Edition, 2008.
CMOS: Mixed-Signal Circuit Design, Second Edition, Baker, Wiley 2009

CMOSedu.com

Analog and mixed signal CMOS design with extensive theory and simulation.
No synthesis of large digital circuits with design for test.

References

CMOS VLSI Design, Neil Weste, David Harris 100.-

www.cmosvlsi.com

Synthesis of large digital CMOS VLSI circuits with test.
No analog CMOS circuits.
Microelectronics generates analog, digital and mixed signal integrated circuits.
Topics in Microelectronics are: synthesis, high level design entry, schematic, layout, circuit devices, manufacturing, packaging, test, characterization, design for test, diagnosis, yield and reliability.
Unfortunately each book covers only a subset of these topics.

References

Application Specific Integrated Circuits Michael Smith 62.-Euro

http://www10.edacafe.com/book/ASIC/ASICs.php

Microelectronic Circuit Design, R. C. Jaeger, T. N. Blalock
McGraw Hill, 4th Edition, 60.- Euro

http://www.jaegerblalock.com/
Links:
IEEE solid state circuits, www.ieee.org
EDACafe:
Design Line: http://www.pldesignline.com/

References

Phil Allen and Doug Holberg
CMOS Analog Circuit Design
2015: 71/28 Euro


http://www.aicdesign.org/scnotes10.html

Links:
IEEE solid state circuits, www.ieee.org
EDACafe:
Design Line: http://www.pldesignline.com/

References

Tiny Tapeout

Low cost easy entry chip design

482:1st order passive Sigma Delta ADC Joerg Vollrath

https://tinytapeout.com/

Tiny Tapeout provides an easy way to get from a verilog description to a digital electronic packaged chip at low cost (200..300.-$ 2025) in 9 months.
There are 8 digital inputs, 8 digital outputs and 8 digital IOs available.
Additional area and analog pins are provided at higher costs and using a graphical layout tool.
The packaged TinyTapout TT06 chip with evaluation board is pictured on the right.
After cnnecting the board with USB to a PC a design can be selected via a web interface.
Documentation is provided via Github.

Summary and Next


Today an engineer has to assemble or improve a complex system.
Same strategies as in microelectronics.
Modelling, Simulation, Test, Documentation
02 History


Top 20 Semiconductor Companies (2016)


IC Insight
Semiconductor sales ranking by company in 2016 (in million U.S. dollars)

Top 15 Semiconductor Sales Leader (2020)


IC Insight
Semiconductor sales ranking by company in 2020(in million U.S. dollars)
Semiconductor Industry Association: Global Semiconductor Sales