Challenges and Innovations in Microelectronics Education in Developing Nations

The microelectronics educational contents of schools in the developing nations lag behind those in the developed nations. From design synthesis to characterization of microchips, these schools lack the equipment and computer aided design (CAD) tools required for quality VLSI (very large scale integration) education. For sustainable economic prosperity, development of the semiconductor industry is important owing to its huge global impacts. The abilities of these nations to train 21^st century ready workforce would not only help them but would increase the global pool of skilled manpower. This paper discusses the challenges faced by these nations and the innovative ways they can utilize industry standard freely available or low cost CAD tools to educate their students. An adder is designed using one of these CAD tools.