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PG Level Advanced Certification Programme in VLSI Chip Design

Hi, everyone. Very Good evening. And thank you for joining us for this webinar today. We apologize for the small, small delay in starting this webinar. We had a bit of an internet issue at our end, but we will get started in earnest. We have both the professors who have joined us today. My name is Ernesto Bhattacharya, and I am the senior director at talentsprint. I primarily take care of admissions and, and Okay, just let me just set this up. I’m so sorry. Yeah, I hope you can all see the screen now. So quickly, in the interest of time, you know, I feel I have a very small presentation today with me. And I wanted to join by two faculty and the program coordinator, one of them being the program coordinator, Professor cittern. And Professor kuruvilla. Today, and we’re going to be having an interesting discussion on va LSI primarily is around the new program that we have launched with ISC. This is our third program that we have with them. And we just going to be talking a little bit about dv LSI industry opportunities that professionals have as a part of this webinar. So I hope everybody can see that in terms of, you know, setting up, hello, hello. So I hope you can see the screen and you are you able to hear me and see me? Uh, yes, in the chat window will be a great thing.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. So what we will do is, we will have a q&a where, you know, audience can ask us questions, I’ve kind of curated a lot of questions that people have generally about the VSI industry. And you know why it’s important and makes great sense for working professionals to upskill themselves. So he’s going to be covering that. So all your questions, if you can hold that on to the end of the webinar, we will try and answer all of your questions, as well. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to dive right down because he can’t last a couple of minutes. So primarily, this is a program which is jointly been set up by talentsprint, and iisc. And this is our third program. talentsprint is an NSC owned company, National Stock Exchange own company. And we work with a lot of top institutions, all over India, and corporates, global corporates to provide deep tech education. With IAC, we’ve started off with launching the digital health program last year, right in the midst of the first wave of the pandemic. And then we launched the second program, which is the deep learning, which is the computational data science program, it’s been a runaway success. The third program was the Deep Learning Program, which just got launched last month. And with the LSI. This is our fourth program, again, first of its kind, very unique program in India, which we have just launched about a couple of weeks back, and we are open for admissions over here. So if you really look at it, and I’m just going to set up the context, I just have about four slides, and then we’re going to move to the professors as well. You know, globally, I mean, there are chips everywhere, from a wearable devices, to your electronics to a bunch to an AC, to your car, to your phone, you name it, it’s actually there are you know, it’s being powered by chips. And that’s something which is at a very active very hard, that’s something that is making the entire sector, and there’s so much demand for professionals over here. That’s one of the reasons why and it’s not going to end I mean, with IoT coming in with 5g coming in. autonomous cars, everything all that’s coming in, this presents a huge opportunity for professionals to upskill themselves in pure in knowing about in the real estate space as well as and obviously you are basically then talking about the semiconductor space as well. Now if you really look at it, this on my slides primarily are going to be from the business context of it, if you look at it, it kind of revenues that are projected. And these were This was from a Deloitte and a Gartner study which was done at the end of 2019. The pandemic there’s been a subsequent study that’s kind of being done right now. But if you really look at it, the the growth rate globally is it’s not been affected. In fact, if you really look at it right now, if you’ve been following the news, you will find that there is a global shortage of chips in the world. For which, if you have been trying to buy electronics, your TVs, etc, smart TVs, all of that there’s a delay there. One of the sectors, which is facing huge delays, actually is the automotive sector. So good. And in the automotive sector, if you really look at it, and this is one of the slides, I’m going to come to the automotive sector in the next slide, if you look at this revenue growth, this is as per You know, this is again from the same Deloitte study, consumer electronics, industrial electronics and cars. These are the three spaces where the maximum revenue worldwide from end users of chips, and semiconductor revenue growth for those respective companies is going to come from.

And this is massive growth, if you really look at it. And I’m sure all of you would have heard the news about this global chip shortage, which is affecting, you know, car sales, cars are not getting delivered electronics are not getting delivered, you have the PlayStation five, which is not being you know, they’re not able to manufacture enough of it, because, you know, there is a shortage of tips. So, what it means is that it’s a huge potential, it’s a huge revenue, revenue for companies, its huge potential for people to actually move into that sector to upskill themselves. And, you know, and and make a career out of it. India and India globally, and this is true for India, as well, there’s been umpteen studies, which have shown that, as a market, we have more than 150 companies which deal with killer chips, silicon, etc, etc. But the fact of the matter is, it’s still very miniscule the amount of talent that’s available, we will talk to the both the professors about the film well, and just for one example, since we’ve been talking about cars over there, if you really look at it from 1970, to 2013, this is, this is something that, you know, Deloitte has kind of come up with the amount of electronic systems in a car, the the volume of that is actually going up. And you know, as smart cars come in, and this is just one small example, of, you know, the various systems in a car where there’s a chip that’s actually driving, if you really look at it, you know, things like anti lock braking system, or, you know, things like your transmission control for an automatic vehicle, throttle control systems, etc. All of this is being powered by chips. So just in a car itself, and this is one example, you know, one hour long webinars actually too short to cover a lot of business cases. But if you really look at it, from an automotive sector, there’s huge amount of, you know, growth and use for chips that are there. So if you look at it, these are, this is from 2018, to 2020, the kind of companies that are there, the global share of that. And, again, it kind of shows in the fact that, you know, these companies all are growing most of the, if you really have been following the stock values, the prices of these companies share prices of these companies, or chip makers, the prices have shown significant improvement, or selection, significant positive movement upwards. So I’m going to kind of, you know, pause here at the moment, and we will kind of move to both the professors who have joined us. So Professor chayton, Professor kuruvilla. Good evening. Thank you for joining in. I could evening, everyone. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. So can we just start off with a small introduction, we can probably start with the professor chayton. And then Professor kuruvilla can give us more introduction. And then I have some, you know, common questions that we keep getting from many of the participants of this program. So I’m going to be asking you those questions. And I’m sure they’ll have fascinating insights to share on this.

Sure. Thank you. So myself, chancing talker, I’m a faculty member at Indonesia of science, Bangalore. And we have been working on several cutting edge technology which is related to chip design. So we work in the area of analog circuit design, digital circuit design, IP systems, building associes and the application. So I think there is a audio from or no video they want to see. Okay, I have not started yet. Professor. Sorry. Okay. Yeah. I’m not used of zoom much. We use teams here. So sorry about that. Yep. So I’m a faculty here at the Indian Institute of Science Technology, interior science, Bangalore. here and we work in the area of analog circuit design and digital plus FPGA system. And the overall goal of our lab is to build low power intelligent systems. So we also cut across AI and neuromorphic computing So that’s the broad area would love boxing. And if you’re really interested, you can just go through the website, it’s neutronics laughs if you just search by name, I mean t dancing taco rice, you probably will find all the details, and you can see all the research what we do there. And I will be happy to have any questions related to that as well here. Thank you a small introduction from you as well. Yeah, good

evening to all very happy to be with you all, and extremely happy to be associated with the talentsprint because they have a successful program going on. This is the first time you know, I see from outside. And I work in networking, we LSI design. So I do the hardware acceleration for high performance computing, networking, multimedia, Bioinformatics, then machine learning, also processor design, and these are the things I concentrate. We have, you know, other than me and Kevin, we have Rupali, who is good in analog electronics, and Sanjeev from sample gun is good in devices. So, we are a small team. But all our kind of, you know, have good enough expertise in their own domain. So I hope you know, we can, you know, meet your expectation from us. I won’t take any any more time. So if you have any questions, I will be very happy to answer along with chatter. So thank you. Thank you for coming.

Thanks, professor. So we will kind of start off with our little kind of lighter note and say, you know, why has, you know, why is V LSI? You know, all of why is this so important? I mean, do I kind of covered a very small fraction of it. Maybe your thoughts on why this has become so important in the current context.

process? Do you wanna go ahead? No, definitely go ahead. Okay. So CB LFA is always the key technology, right, since its inception. Right. And I would say it is the most, can I stop the video? I can’t hear probably there is some internet connection because the thunderstorm is there. Yeah. Right. Sorry about that. Yes, I was mentioned that VSI always has been the key technology. Right. And I would say it is the most important invention of the 20th century. And you might see that it has completely changed the society, as Arthur was saying, right. So that was another point is, it’s always niche, right? You need to go through the whole process to understand how it works. Without that you will not be able to cope up with like any other technology or in software, right. And you always need a good engineer. So although there is a demand of good engineers in this in this in this area, so it is a good opportunity if you go through this whole process of understanding how this whole wheel set design work. So that’s the whole idea about this program.

Sure. And, you know, we were you kind of talking the other day, I heard you mentioned the fact that we hardly have very few qualified professionals here in India, and this very little research that’s happening. Can you just talk a little bit on that? I think that’s that was a very fascinating insight for me, I’m sure the audience would also love to hear that.

So in India, as I said, right, and you were pointing out right, there is a large number of companies or MNC is present. I would say that around 50 companies if I’m not wrong around 30 Plus is is mmcs like Texas Instruments, Intel Broadcom, Cypress, just name it Nvidia, all the amenities are here in Bangor mostly in Bangalore, and then around 1015 or 1516 would be on the service side which provide the service for example, they provide manpower to these companies right. The for example, TCS Wipro, they provide for various segments, manpower in the various segments and then on top of the now, because of the recent surge, because of this startup booms and because of this fabulous companies, because earlier what used to happen, I mean, I’m talking about two three decades back, the companies who has large amount of money, those companies only can sustain I for example, ti Intel, they used to have their own foundries, but since the the sixth exponential growth of this tsmc Now, most of the companies are fabulous right because of that, the startup culture is also coming up into into the silicon industry, which was very difficult earlier because you need a large amount of funding there to, to have that. So that is a Yeah, and as I was pointing out, right, it’s a niche, because that’s what’s your question? Right. Yeah.

Jordan, I would like to add two things mentioned the, you know, the properly trained people are lacking in this industry because the undergraduate program doesn’t take this subject seriously. Okay, there’s a very the constant complaint from the industry is that there are lack of training. So, specialized training and that because it is very, there are a lot of tools used a lot of technology use. So, the the concept and the undergraduate program many times doesn’t give hardly you know, 20% is covered even the the concept wide. So, there is very, that is very important than whether you you know see it or not as mentioned by Asha did a lot of you know, tips are everywhere you know, it like you know, I am sitting in front of the laptop, other mobile is by the side, mouse and the microphone, which is what our noise canceling, there are a lot of chips. And if you the automobile sector, that single car has so many chips and and there are so much work to do. I think there’s good market for it. So that should not be forgotten.

Yeah, we’ll just add on to this one that, as you pointed out, right, there’s hardly much focus in undergrad training, right? This is more like advanced training right in Vila is is advanced for much electronics, like in undergrad, mostly you read you study basic circuits, basic electronics, digital logic, right, but you don’t go to the VSI integration level, right, how the whole IC can be formed. And there are various reasons for that. One is, as I said, it’s a it’s requires some advanced concepts on top of that requires the tools, right. So tools are very costly here. And you if you want to set up your own company, when they start You will need A millions of dollars just to start with this company, which is not the case in software or any other companies, right. So that makes another hurdle to go into the direction and if you see India is such a big country, but if on top of that you have very few Institute’s for example, who can afford this kind of training, for example, it is and it is I see if you leave this institute, I mean, there are just few numbers, right. But the engineers, most of the engineers, I mean, this it is and it is always comprised of only five to 6% of engineers, right. But in this industry, we need people a lot of people we need, but they don’t have that background, right. So it’s always a problem and company always look for good engineers. So and this program would definitely would help the under the whole idea we start with, and the focus only in design part, which companies needs. So we start with fundamentals, we’ll start with how basic device physics works, and from device physics to how you can build the analog chip or digital chip or how you can build FPGA based Soc. So there’s a whole focus here mainly on the design. And that’s why it makes it unique as well, in that sense. Absolutely.

And I was actually reading this, you know, the support professors, you’re absolutely right, that you know, it is and it is and it is and then the other top institutions actually provide less than 15% of the actual demand in the market. So you know, and there’s huge demand. Actually, let’s, let’s talk a little bit about what ISC has been doing, you know, any of the research that’s been happening at ISC at you know, your labs, etc, in in the field of view LSI chip design.

Yeah, so in icbl, research labs across the full spectrum of the VLC technology, I would say, so we have people from devices, device physics, emerging devices, they’re coming of new emerging devices, currently, what industries and everyone use their most CMOS based right silicon based people are coming based on germanium and various other materials. So we have a lot of faculty working in that area, that’s more device physics side. And then, on the design side, we have various faculty, for example, a curricula expert in FPGA based SOC design, and myself working in the mixed signal and FPGA in digital. And then we have people working the RF side RF microwave circuits we have people in in CAD tools. So we have we covered the whole spectrum here. And so we get the full training in ISC. We have several MTech program which covers all these subjects. We have PhD student who works in this area and the research domain. And in the research domain, he found out again in RF circuit side radar accelerator and neuromorphic circuit which is the focus of my lab building intelligent systems. So, we cover all this latest cutting edge technology and you can go and check the website if anyone interested to go more in detail. So,

yeah, I will add apart from us, you know, project router who works on RF and analog and he is now developing radars for the military. And we have also been working in microwave then also division gobhi in simulation, and I think raha prasada. Again, in CAD and simulation, then as I said, I hope in mixed signal ADCs process and given flexible electronics, you will you will see, you will get some advanced lectures from him. And we have faculty joining us who is going to work in again in digital cryptography, all that kind of areas.

Right. And thank you for that Professor. So, in terms of if he were to look at it, you know, Professor chayton, briefly mentioned it that we kind of moving away from, you know, silicon based chips to newer, you know, newer technologies and new ways of producing chips. Can you talk a little bit about for the interest in the interest of everybody, you know, what are the upcoming trends that you’re seeing, when it comes to, you know, VSI or, or teach or chip design, so to speak.

So, these are at the subject level, right? So it’s still design is still more as a designer, you don’t need to worry much about what is the substrate, right, if you’re talking about the designer level, not at the device level. So but now, because of this, Moore’s Law, I think most of the people would be knowing because you can’t go below some technology note right. So that’s what this emerging devices coming in for example, memristors based devices coming in for memory space and and for power, there is gallium nitride based devices coming in, but on top of the distal it is difficult to replace completely silicon based technology or seem always because industry, as I said, it’s a very big money game, right? People have invested billions of dollars billions of dollars over the last few decades. And so, it can replace completely, but this new technology, which we are talking about, they are have their own niche in particular application. So those are the things is still people are doing that, but very specific applications.

Right. You know, he said kuruvilla spoke a little bit about use cases in cars, etc. are you doing any research in terms of any upcoming, you know, any fields where you can kind of talk a little bit about, I mean, both of your question can be taken up by anyone, where, you know, we are seeing newer ways of, you know, research that you are doing upcoming stuff that you can probably share with us if it’s not confidential yet and go ahead, okay.

Yeah, so, I will just talk about this AI right artificial intelligence right machine learning, because this is the buzzword as well and probably people will be able to connect. So, there are various works even postapproval as lab they have been working on the accelerator side how they can make it faster right faster at the same time low power right. Because let’s even if you want to do this machine learning was very, very big model right and you want to work in this real time right. So, currently, most of this software base or or in the lab set up or people use big GPU machines right and they are very, very power hungry, but if you want to do in for low power applications, for example, in car or or any IoT based devices, you really, really need to concern about the power right. So, for that, you need to build custom chips or you need to go to the custom FPGA implementation or paralyzation are various techniques appeal as a unit exploit there. So, this is this is very big area, very hot area. And now, the lot of startups a lot of companies are pushing big monies and that would accelerate the growth of VSI again, in a big way, so 5g, I would say 5g in this AI is a big thrust area, which will drive the Vsat design and technology in the next decade or so. So, that is one of the example another is on the analog side. For example, now, we talk about edge computing right or IoT, where you want to do things in like micro watts of power only watts of power, right? So you need to build custom chip, you need to have everything on a single die, where you can do analog, you can do digital at the same time, you need to have intelligence there, right, which is an How can you do that? So a lot of opportunities are there for designers, right? Can you build some new architecture, which is just taking few milliwatts of micro watts of power. So Ai is a big area which you unit to look at. And in fact, there will be one simple project in this course where I’ll be focusing on how you can build a simple machine learning x later in using digital technology. And this is because this is one of the main research area of my lab. So that’s what to be focused on that both analog and digital side. And of course, this is also a research area for Professor kuruvilla as well. So

yeah, one or two things, you know, just to give you a taste of it. So presently, we are, you know, kind of designing a 64 bit RISC, we outperformed our process processor, the recipe is very much in demand. And we are doing something in bioinformatics, short rate alignment, which most of the companies use GPUs. And we are trying to build with FPGA so that there is low power, you can use a cluster of less machines. So, just to give you an example, yeah. And I’m sure there are some questions in the chat box, should I answer that? Professor, we

will take up with the questions at the last, we just finish off with the initial set of questions, and we’ll take audience questions at the last Professor if that’s okay. Yes. Sure. So, let’s say we just look at, you know, I mean, we are in the midst of the pandemic, you know, so, out of the COVID, how is COVID affected this has COVID had any effect that, you know, you are aware of in terms of the the effect on the industry as a whole?

You want to go ahead to prosecute? Definitely, definitely. The in terms of industry, yes. Because the the production is bit down, you know, that, as initially said, you know, the automobile industry is, is not getting chips, and but, you know, I think the facts are not seriously affected, but it’s a it’s a complete ecosystem, with lots of subsidiary companies, you know, it’s a huge industry, because many, many times you see only the foundry, but foundry need a lot of lot of components from other industry. So it is affected, but I think it is, it is still, you know, picking up and in any case, you know, if you look at the industry, there is not enough trained, you know, manpower and that is required. So, but in terms of our, you know, you know, education field, this has affected a bit because, you know, physically walking on the circuit is a bit of a problem, but VSI you know, the tools are so good, you know, we can cover most of the things, you know, through the simulation, and things like that. So, as I’m personally teaching a course and leads completely online, but I think people are not complaining much. And there are FPGA boards, which you can work with, which you can buy, and most of the things can be done with the tool. Yeah, that’s fine.

Yeah, exactly. It’s this is mainly affecting the supply chain, right, it’s not on the design aspect of it. So designers still working on their designs and coming up with new architectures.

Yeah, I think Chetan has some issue we can we can continue there is no problem.

So, let me also kind of talk a little bit about the program itself. So I how Why is the house program unique if you were to kind of talk a little bit about that Professor, what are the unique aspects of the program? I know that you know there aren’t too many programs like this in the market. But what is it that makes this program unique? Why should somebody consider doing this program if he or she has already graduated from a you know an EDI background and and is probably working in in a company right now, why should they do this program?

Yeah. So, the one thing because we also interact with the industry, sometimes we go and give codes to the industry people and many times people are not, there is a lack of training that the concept Okay, so Before we do the whatever cutting edge work, one thing and Academy can shoot like ISC Excel, using the basics, you know, the concepts. And nowadays, the tools are very smart, you know, people can do many things, without proper grasping the thing, you know, and you know, the tools can do a lot of magic. Many people don’t know how these magic works. So we are strong in, in in concepts basics, as well as application, we are very practical, you know, unlike other institutions, where they many times it is kind of textbook knowledge, they will not have, you know, really worked on the current problem. So, I would say is he strong isn’t in basic concepts, as well, as you know, working at the cutting edge, I wouldn’t kind of say we are the best or something I can, yeah, we are, is he is one of the best. So you will be benefited by that kind of thing. And that increase, you know, when you when you learn something deeply, you will be able to attack, you know, so there was a, because I happen to see a question on the chat box. What part of the radar, you know, you’re going to talk See, I tell you, frankly, I will not teach you any or No, absolutely not at all. But if if you if you seriously learn what I teach you, if somebody want to design a radar application, they will be able to do the radar, radar based design, you know, there is absolutely no you need to have a little domain knowledge, you I may not teach you the processor design, but going to my course or chitons course or a ropes course, you will be able to, you know, gain the domain knowledge and design in that domain.

Yeah, I will just add on here. Yes, so you rightly pointed out that we have really good basics, what we teach here, and also the practical thing, which is we should focus more because if you see the faculty dicey, especially in this area all, I mean, almost all are coming from industry as well. So we have really hands on knowledge, what we build in industry as well. So we know how to build chips, even right now we build chips, even in my course people build chips, even in our lab, we build chips, so we have real practical knowledge and demonstration. So that will really help will give you insight, not just a bookish knowledge. So that’s one point and in terms of programming is unique because this particular program is unique in a sense, because it covers mainly the design aspects. We teach all the fundamentals of design, for example, we are covering three main verticals, analogs, we’ll say design analog circuit design, we are covering FPGA SOC based design, we’re covering digital integrated circuit design. So in a in a in a single course, you’ll be having almost the full coverage of the design aspect of the the real OSI domain, and that makes it unique. Another thing is, for example, for industry professional what Arthur was asking for examples, see, this is this is a very vast area, right? For example, if somebody is working in Texas Instruments and working in the analog domain, he might not know how digital works, right. Or if somebody’s working digital, he might in digital itself, there is several verticals, it’s a they have an architecture design, they have a DFT they have a verification, they have a physical design, physical design person don’t know anything about architecture, how it is being done, right. So, this whole comprehensive way is the is the goal of teaching in this course. Yeah.

Yeah. In this one to one more question, we are not the RF design is not part of this course. So I was talking when you say radar, the digital part of that you know the radar electronic the RF is not part of this. This program,

yeah, but if you know basic analog, you know, you can build the basic components of the radar like amplifiers and other things. So, to some extent, you you will get an idea.

Right, but we are not they are not we are not exposing them to the to no no no no. particular to the domain. Yeah.

We’ll pick up a couple of questions. Then. I will start off with vishwajeet Shukla who has a question. He’d been working in DSP firmware in the physical layer domain for about 18 years now. Do you think that this course would be useful for him to make a career switch into the the LSI domain, professors, any of you want to?

Yeah, I can assure you if you’re ready to learn, we will teach you but I’m not sure how when recruitment happens, how they’re reacting You’re assuming that that’s all. I mean, if we can face an interview, you can definitely get through, I have no problem. But whether you know, when somebody looks at your resume, you have an 18 years of experience. And, you know, I don’t know how industry considers that. But I can assure you, if you’re open to learning, you love to put a little little bit effort, you can learn this promotion apps,

I am one of the things that you know, I mean, we we actually have a lot of senior professionals who bureau come into our other programs, as well, one of the things that we have seen is that, yes, when you are making a career switch, or any making industry switch, you do have to look at a small sacrifice in terms of your seniority and all of that, because you are basically moving into a sector where, you know, there are people who have been working, who have been working for a long time. So if you’re willing to do that, and if you have the skills, there is enough demand in the market for you to probably, you know, to get a job. So you’ve got to put in the effort, like Professor kuruvilla said, and if you can build up build up the skills, and, you know, demonstrate that I’m sure there will be companies that are there, the opportunities that come your way, so to speak.

Yeah, another point I was just head on. So see sometimes what happens in industry, they have this special position like silicon validation engineer, right? And or firmware engineer, right. So when the chip comes in, they have to run this application test cases or use cases. And they’re this kind of your narrow expertise in DSP form, where would be useful if you have this background and be in a set design, you know, how the architecture is working? So that knowledge would certainly help in, in this area, and in all this company, they have silicon validation engineer, and they have some background in the LSI.

Absolutely, thank you. We’ll go on to a question from Vijay, which, which is a bit of an emotive question probably, you know, the second part of it specially Why is there a shortage of chips globally? And why is China the largest export exporter of chips and not India?

Yeah, so, you know, that the second part straightaway, we don’t manufacture the chips, you know, we have a one Foundry and by semiconductor complex limited, they use a 180 nanometer technology, which cannot do complex digital chips. So, we are not manufacturing chips in in. I mean, we have nowhere we don’t have a water say, state of the art foundry. And which is very difficult to, you know, support unless we have market outside by I don’t think by India’s market alone, unless we export chips. It is difficult because of Taiwan, you know, the tsmc young see, most of the know the people with foundry are very close, you know, the Intel, as far as I understand Intel may have Foundry and I’m not sure about Samson, IBM used to have probably they have sold it. So the foundry itself is, you know, low. And it’s not. Yeah, China. Because, yeah, they have it’s a matter of policy. And, you know, starting having the knowledge itself is not enough to to excel in an industry, the country’s policy matters. And all the governments do the long term planning and funding and how aggressive people can go. But then, as Harsha mentioned, there’s a lot of scope for IP design, you know, there’s a soft design, which can be done in India or any corner of the eye, if you are even sitting in a small village. If you have a good network connection, you can do IP design. You know, you can be a freelancer doing a lot of deciders on our market from the big fellows to small fellows everywhere. Right, Professor Google, I’ve

actually, you know, the example the China example, this below this report, the Deloitte report was reading over there that the Chinese government and you’re absolutely right, when you say that the Chinese government has probably put in a subsidy or state or state funding to the tune of about $50 billion for the the the manufacturing of chips in in China. So that weighs India, you’re absolutely right, that you know, there is there needs to be a lot more support. And obviously, you know, the market also needs to be much bigger. So that’s Yeah, that’s that such a thing. Would you want to add anything to this or do you can we go to the next question. Let us go ahead. So shabar has a question, you know, there are multiple modules in the curriculum, you know, and he wants to understand, you know, what will be covered, you know, in during the six month period. So I can the last part is can the team share the weekly curriculum to know how much depth we’ll be going into, we will be happy to have a document which we can share, but the professor you know, if you can kind of cover a little bit in terms of the depth of the curriculum that is there in the

year. So, the more broadly we have the devices device physics, you know, semiconductor starting with a semiconductor device physics, the simulation there, then the analog circuit design, ADCs, ghgs, and all that, then the digital Viola side design digital FPGA design. So, so, all when you say digital FPGA design output, we are concentrating on how to design you know, how to take a problem and break it down and design, how to design the data path of design the controller pipeline it, how to increase the throughput, and how to target something to FPGA, you know, and we will be doing unwanted selectors, how this can be applied to maybe machine learning some part of the processor design latest things like flexible electronics, then we will also you know, teach you about verification, design for testing, all that, you know, there are certain things like directly the set of tools, maybe the CAD algorithms, all that is not covered, because in various industry tool building is a big, big part and that is not covered that might mean for computer, computer science students, not for the electronics students that involves, you know, building these tools like synopsis or cadence or vivado or menda. You know, there are a lot of tools and they use a lot of you know, the algorithms which is normally done by the computer science people. Yes.

Right. So, there is a follow up question in terms of the lectures from Shabbat, Shabbat, we will be sharing a detailed view of curriculum and the way in which the de RS split usually will not be a five hour long lecture. So, the split and all will be shared in the next couple of weeks with you will be just, you know, finalizing on that,

yes, we are working on it. There will be you know, sub you know, topic wise lectures, within two weeks, it will reach you the

right. Rakesh Mohanty has a question what’s the start date of the program, we are looking at starting the program, doing an induction for it sometime at the by the end of next month. And with classes starting sometime in the month of July. The final dates like your professor mentioned, we are we are going to come back to you in the next couple of weeks with the final dates as well, you know, with the pandemic there’s a bit of uncertainty that’s there around. So, we just trying to factor that in and get you know some more clarity and we are going to come back but mostly classes will definitely be starting in the month of July we will probably do an induction or an orientation in the month of end of June itself. So, that is something that we will be okay let’s look at it Chaitanya has a question Will we be working on RSI seat v processor during this course Professor kuruvilla which I see RFI see which we have will not be teaching no we will we will not be teaching out of it design Yes No. Okay. So, does physical design is that also a part of the program?

Yes, I will be covering as a digital chip design part of that and you will design the whole chip as as a as a course project or a module project there.

Right. So rockets has a question, is it suitable for some of faculty who’s in itI? With specialization in ca CAD vl si and Master’s in engineering in Vienna site design?

Yeah, of course you will be more suited in fact, you already have a backgrounds

that got the the sweet answer, we’ll be be given an opportunity to work in your research group after this course.

So that’s a possibility. We so we have in labs here right in I see we have a project staff position, we have research staff position, that completely depends on the project to project right and what kind of expertise you have. So it’s a very narrow skill set required for that. So if you have those and if you found your suitable then Yeah, why not?

Okay

appreciate he has a question he has experience in embedded systems verification and validation in automotive domain Will he be able to switch to the the LSI domain?

Yes, it depends on him if he wants to go into the LSI domain if it doesn’t have any background if he wants to switch as a completely as a fresher Yeah, there is a possibility. Because if you see the numbers right in all these companies, they always have let’s see around 15% of freshers, so, there is always have possibilities if you want to switch to get a domain. Great.

So, okay, who again has a question now that the current node technology has reached two nanometers, what would be the future of CMOS technology or alternate technologies coming up?

So see, now the focus has changed to many other aspects, right? People are moving more on the architecture side, right? Adding this technology go into the technology and technology lower and lower technology. Now the gain is not linear, right? So people are exploring more on the architecture side, right? How can you have the better architecture? Right? So that’s one thing, another thing people are exploring more on the emerging devices but not at the architectural level or not at the replacing the whole silicon. And this two nanometer visa you’re talking about that is mainly digital technology. Okay, this is not for analog analog is still people fabricated in 90 nanometer 180 nanometer. And this is not for the sensor technology. So you have to be very careful when you listen this word two nanometer is mainly for digital. It’s still building analog and lower processes is a is a nightmare.

Yeah, so you know that the processes are already like in your mobile and laptop is going for core eight core. It’s because of the scaling issue. People are building multi core machines and things like that. So far, parallelism is exploit Yeah,

the density is the major issue density because the power density you can’t have put so many transistors in a small area and and expect that it will not burn the chip, right? Because the power density will be so high you can’t work it right that’s what you will see now the heat up issue in your all laptops. And so now even people put that silicon they call it dead silicon, even a whole shape. They’re just using let’s see, for example, 60 60% of the area, that area, just switch it off. And then they just do the round robin kind of architecture there. So they can’t run all at the same time because of this issue.

Absolutely. So we’ll move on to the next question. You know, Akash he has completed his MSc in electronics are easy eligible for the course. Yes. Yes, yes. Yes. Okay, so there’s another question from sabar? Will there be any office hours with the professor’s one on one?

Yeah, no biggie. I think that’s what we have right in for we will have Yeah,

you will, the platform will allow you to book specific slots, basis, the availability of the professor or the professors and you will be able to, you know, book one slot with them and get your doubts clarified. So yes, there will be officers with the professors basis, their availability. alvina has a question, what’s the difference between back end and front end roles? is physical design back end? Yes, that’s correct. Okay, and what is the front?

Yeah, front end architecture design up to the logic circuit and the back end will do the logic to transistor to layout and all the issue the placement, routing, signal integrity, power, all that all that

Right, right. So, we will go on to the next question. You know, Vivek asks, you know, given that the hardware is bundled as a part of the program, how much of the course would be hands on betters, you know, project based and how much of it will be theoretical, so, he wants to understand that.

So, everything we teach Will you know, kind of will be applied, those concepts will be applied in in terms of assignment, which is in our case, assignment means always lab exercise, and project. So, each of our module will have lab exercise and the project, so, there’ll be at least four to five projects, and we will be in the cause of teaching itself we will be considering the case studies, which is like small project

right. biswajit also has a question in terms of, you know, preparation for the program. So, any kind of, I mean knowledge anything that he can prepare in to help be more successful or to gain You know maximum learning out of the program.

So, my portion, I kind of assume that you have knowledge of digital system and other graduate level. So, that is better you learn and I think I will in the detail thing I will be doing a review of the basics, but you need to read a bit of digital system basics, up to at least you know kind of flip flops and registers and things like the counters. From there I will be taking, but I think for Chetan and Aruba, and Sanjeev Sangha, then they don’t assume any basic support. They’ll be teaching from the very, you know, really basic level.

Yeah, as long as you have undergrad training, as long as you know, what is current voltages, basic Khrushchev’s law, basic basic network theory, basic circuit theory, basic electronics, then you’re good to go.

Great. Thank you, professor. So we’re almost towards the end of the questions. You know, I’m going to just launch a small poll, this is just feedback on the webinar, if you can share that, please, while we take up the next set of questions, such as the question is a coding knowledge required to be to be a part of this program? And is that a prerequisite?

So coding is C, we use Verilog, VHDL languages. And we don’t expect that you know, this, because the hardware description language, in fact, if you don’t know any language, that’s better. Because if somebody is coming from previous site, like, C, Java, you need to think completely different if you want to learn HTML languages or in hardware discipline, because you need to think in terms of hardware. And sometime, if you’re coming from a typical software background, it takes time to unlearn first, before you start learning this. So that way, it’s okay. You don’t need anything.

Right? So there’s a question from against your boss, you know, he wants to understand the composition of the lab gate, apart from the FPGA board, you know, what else will be there in the lab kit?

So you will have the CAD design, we’ll say cad tools, you will have access to the tool. Yes.

Right. And, and so Okay, so this is there. What about prerequisite software required? There’s a prerequisite in terms of the software that’s required, right? You know, they will anyway, get access to the cabin stool and the FPGA board, which part of the program

Yeah, and then then we will teach on that, how to use those. And that will be part of the lab exercise and assignment. So this, this particular course, is a very lab, this whole course is very lab intensive, and you need to put really hard work, it’s not like other courses, you can you just need one or two hours in a week, extra time here, you need to put extra time to understand the concept, refine the concept and go through the assignment. So it will require some time some hard work required from your side.

Right. And, and in terms of the amount of effort that people have to put in this is a fairly standard question that we get, apart from the class number of hours in class. I, again, don’t know, Professor, if you have finalized that in terms of the number of hours over the weekend. But other than that, you know, what’s the kind of effort that somebody will need to put in saying that you know, in terms of the opposite time that they need to spend outside of those six plus hours any any broad ballpark, you know, figured that you could give us

yeah, I think my opinion at least three to four hours. Even though you attend the lectures, you know, we will try our best to articulate and, you know, take the concept to you, but you have to one thing is that you have to go through the slide. So, if it’s a one hour lecture, and you go through the slide definitely it will take to review the lectures, it will take one or I mean one or one undersell like three hour lecture one and a half hour, then we will give some assignment, when we give assignment we are covering the concept, but in solving the assignment we have to do a little bit of study and you will not work with the tools you know. So, we are not going to say sometimes when we give a lab assignment, it may have some study involved in it. So, initially you know we will go in a kind of hardness from at the beginning will be simple so that you can get used to the thing then we will harden it bit. So I expect some four to five hours work. And it varies with the people, you know, there are people who are good background. And there are they’re very, some people are very quick to grasp. And so it varies from people to people, but I can assure you that you give feedback, you know, this is, you know, we are not given such a course to this audience, we are used to giving course to our students and we have little, that’s a little bit different than you know, we are, we have little more, what’s a command and we give assignment they have to do, but he with you, it is literally the friend, you know, you should be we cannot force thing only we cannot say by Tuesday evening, this has to be done. But if you find on an average people find something is a little bit hard, we can kind of take that into consideration. So the first batch we will learn from you also. Yes,

absolutely. That’s that’s a wonderful answer. I mean, having been a part of, you know, a couple of others, kind of other programs from, you know, leading institutions myself, it’s usually a good idea to spend a couple of hours or, you know, allocate a couple of hours outside of those fixed number of class hours. Because you have group exercises, you need to kind of, you know, most of the people who will be doing this program, we kind of programs, come back into the learning phase after many years. So, you know, getting the basics, right, etc. Getting into that truth does take time, so you should plan for some more hours, and add a bit of sacrifice in terms of the amount of time that you have for yourself, at least for the six months to get the best out of these programs. Just give out a couple of more questions. Since they are coming in bridge hardware descriptive language will be taught that’s a question by Chaitanya

will teach very long, which is mainly an industry may mainly use Verilog. So we just focus on that.

Right. So Abhishek has a question is UVM taught as a part of the program?

Yeah, we tried to cover with some verification methodology, but won’t be in great details, because we have limited time, right, six months, we can’t cover everything. But of course, we’ll cover even verification methodology UVM, as you said, and the FT also would be part of that design test. Also, we’ll cover interest.

Right. The second question is yes. In terms of the license for the cadin software, yes, the license for the candidates software will be a part of the gate.

Yeah. And Okay, so, I suppose, especially on a domain plan for him,

it will be not important, I think the professor’s have already answered. You know, we’ve already done that. Are you going to teach sta in this program? Yes, it will be part of this. Yes. Yes. Okay, so, last two questions that we will take up and these, you know, I can take this up as well, any placement opportunities as a part of the program, very clearly, this is there are no placement opportunities that will be given by IHC. Now, what usually happens is because this is an executive program, majority, almost 90 95% of the people who will be doing the program are already working, having said that, you will be a part of the talentsprint alumni network. And then we have something called a career accelerator, which, where you where there will be curated opportunities that come in from our large network of, you know, corporates that that are in touch with us for opportunities, and for, you know, personnel. So we keep replaying all of that in the alumni network, there’s, there’s a proper forum for that. And you will actually be an alumni of multiple programs in the sense that you will get to interact with alumni from say, our IIT Kanpur cybersecurity program or the IAC data science program or the deep learning program or the digital health program. So, it’s and the all the other programs that are there. So, there are enough opportunities that you know, alumni keep posting that we keep posting, you can look at that and there are various other you get to network with you know, much wider set of people than just from your own class group, which anyway will happen. So, you can use that, as a part of that most cases, we also tell people that, you know, placement is not the core outcome that people should be focusing on. You know, because if you have the skills with the job will come and find you, you don’t need to actually, you know, it’s it’s a function of your skills that you build up as a part of the program. So you can concentrate on building the skills up, there are enough opportunities in the market, you will be able to get that. Okay, so I think we have come to most any real answer most of the programs we’ve covered the one are, we are little ahead of time. Okay, for one last question, will you will they be able to perform any opportunity to perform lab work in the labs at ISC professors as part

of the course there is a lab visit. So we will be showing you around but coming to I see lab in the banglalink is upon working there will be difficult, I think, yes. There’s no doubt that the program is not part of the program.

Yeah, it’s not a part of the program, and maybe even the campus visit may or may not happen. We don’t we don’t have Sure. I mean, we are not sure ourselves because of the current health situation that’s there. In terms of the fees of the program, all of that, you know, I’ve been flashing Chara, Geron Harsha. Hotshots number and email address over here. He’s the program LEAD program counselor for this, you can get in touch with him. All the details are going to be, you know, he’ll have access to all of the details. Thank you so much, professors. Thank you so much for all the time that you spent today with us and all of the panels and all of the you know, audiences Well, in answering our questions. It was wonderful having you. I thank all of the audiences Well, you know, spending more than an hour on on a Wednesday with us. Thank you so much. We look forward to getting your applications. And seeing many of you in the class. I know a couple of you are considering enrolling for the program. Some of the names are pretty familiar since I look at most of I look at all of the applications itself. Thank you, Professor cheater. And thank you, professor. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you by you in the class hopefully, see you but I keep the poll open for just about 2030 seconds more, in case you want to vote. please do let us know your feedback. Thank you professors. Thank you

Watch the entire interview here https://youtu.be/uRJPWZSvJag