Event Location

Contact

Questions
Please contact us if you have any questions: sharc-hub@sheffield.ac.uk

More Information

Goal
The goal of the workshop is to make integrated circuit (IC) design more accessible to university students and to give participants a practical, hands-on introduction to chip design and related study and career paths in electrical engineering and microelectronics. Using open-source tools and the Tiny Tapeout framework, we’ll create designs and work towards a collective submission, with the aim to tape out on the SkyWater open-source process, targeting a May tapeout.

When
Wednesday, 4 March, 13:00–17:30, followed by food and networking after the workshop.

Where
The Diamond, University of Sheffield

Who can attend
This workshop is for university students (students from any university are welcome).

What we’ll do
We’ll look at the basics of how transistors work and how simple digital circuits are built. Then we’ll dive into the hands-on flow: creating a small digital design, integrating it into the Tiny Tapeout framework, and preparing it for submission, putting you on a real path to fabrication.

Tapeout + testing
Designs created during the workshop will be included in our SkyWater tapeout (planned for May). Once the chips return from fabrication, the designs will be made available for testing, so you can come back and try out your design on real silicon.

Prizes
We’ll also have prizes during the workshop.

More about the workshop
Together with Tiny Tapeout (https://tinytapeout.com) and partners across the UK microelectronics community, the University of Sheffield is helping to make IC design more accessible, so more students can get involved and get excited about chip design and careers in semiconductors. Using open-source tools, we’ll design chip blocks over an afternoon and have them manufactured. Each workshop is a (Tiny) step towards democratising chip design and inspiring the next generation of talent in the UK.

Supporters
The workshop is supported by industry partners EnSilica (EnSilica) (https://www.ensilica.com/), GarField Microelectronics (GFMicro) (https://www.gfmicro.com/) / Presto Engineering (Presto) (https://www.presto-eng.com/), and Novomorphic (https://novomorphic.com/), with additional support from the Centre for Heterogeneous Integration of MicroElectronic and Semiconductor Systems (CHIMES) (https://chimes-ikc.org/) and the UK Electronics Skills Foundation (UKESF) (https://www.ukesf.org/).

Prerequisites
No prior knowledge is necessary. You should be able to use a computer and the internet. We will be using web-based tools, and you may need a GitHub account to access templates and submit your design.

What to bring
We’ll be working in a computer-lab environment; computers will be available, but feel free to bring your own laptop if you prefer.