IC design and manufacture for undergraduates: theory, design and practice

In this paper we describe how the practical design and manufacture of modern CMOS integrated circuits (ICs) have been incorporated into the second year of our undergraduate Electronics degree program. While many undergraduate degree programs offer theoretical and design of ICs, none have published a complete design cycle teaching approach including practical manufacture and test of ICs. We demonstrate how the design process has been tightly coupled with theoretical aspects of the degree course and incorporate transferable skills into the design exercise. We will also provide the technical information on how this design exercise can be accomplished sensibly for a large cohort of students (ar126100) in practical terms.