A low-cost route to silicon design and fabrication in electronic engineering undergraduate courses

An account is given in the paper of the experience of the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at Birmingham Polytechnic in adopting a new approach to the semi-custom design cycle. It describes a philosophy which has resulted in a different teaching approach to that normally found in most academic institutions. The paper identifies how powerful, low-cost, general purpose workstations, a completely integrated ECAD software suite and the use of Electron-Beam lithography have been combined so that the `route-to-silicon´ is an economically feasible goal for all undergraduate students