MICROELECTRONIC SYSTEMS NEWS



FILENUMBER: 461
BEGIN_KEYWORDS
New NSF MOSIS Policies
END_KEYWORDS
DATE: june 1995
TITLE: New NSF MOSIS Policies



New NSF MOSIS Policies

(Contributed by John Staudhammer of NSF)

For more than a decade, use of MOSIS for education in VLSI design
and test has been sponsored by the
National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Advanced Research
Projects Agency (ARPA).  Annually, 5000 student projects from over 
190 universities in 49 states and the District of Columbia are
fabricated.  Due to the rapid growth of the
users and the available budget, it has become necessary to monitor the
MOSIS allocations more closely in order to ensure that a large number
of students from academic departments across the country have access
to fabrication facilities in support of their education and training
in VLSI Design and Test.
Therefore, starting with the Fall semester 1995, new funding
procedures will be in place for educational use of MOSIS.  

BEGINNING CLASSES: The funding allocation for beginning classes will
remain at one 2.0 micron TinyChip for every two students.

ADVANCED CLASSES: The funding allocation for intermediate and advanced
classes will be one 2.0 micron TinyChip for each student.  Within the
next year, NSF hopes to add 1.2 micron TinyChips to the technologies
available to advanced classes.

ADVANCED CLASSES WITH SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS: Some creative advanced
class designs may warrant the use of larger die sizes, or technologies
other than 2.0 micron CMOS.  Instructors with special requests will be
required to successfully compete in an NSF-administered proposal
process.  NSF will will strive to support as many meritorious
proposals as possible, within budget constraints.  See section 2.3.2
below for more information.

NEW TECHNOLOGIES: MOSIS is currently in the process of qualifying
vendors for a 1.2 micron double-metal, double-poly process similar to
the 2.0 micron CMOS N-well process currently being offered, as well as
a 1.2 micron double metal, single poly process.  If the qualification
runs are successful, these technologies should be available to
advanced classes soon, and eventually to beginning classes.  1995
semester.

GENERAL POLICIES:
All educational users of the MOSIS service will be expected to have
the necessary computational and communication resources necessary for
creating and verifying designs, submitting them for implementation,
and testing them for operation.  Although users may seek funds for
such capabilities from regular NSF programs, no special funds are
reserved to offset these costs. Educational usage will be subject to
the following conditions:

(1) Participants must have their own design tools, including
software, computer time, graphics terminals, plotting equipment,
etc. Initial design tools may be obtained from participants in the
ARPA VLSI program or from the generous educational programs
sponsored by many CAD software vendors.

(2) Participants are expected to have a course plan that includes
the methodology for verifying designs before submission and testing
designs after implementation.

(3) Participants must perform logic verification and design
simulation before projects are submitted for fabrication.

(4) Participants must submit their designs over a network such as the
Internet, NREN, or one of the commercial network. Files transmitted
over these networks are to be in CIF format . Other acceptable formats
may be announced by MOSIS.  Please contact amosis@isi.edu to obtain a
current list of acceptable formats.  Fabricated circuits will be sent
to participants through ordinary mail or parcel channels.

(5)  Participants are expected to test all designs and report their
testing results to NSF and ARPA.  Reports should include the number
of designs submitted, the number of parts received, the number of
parts tested, and the number of operating or inoperative chips as
well as a one-page summary including a project abstract, simulation
results, test plan and test results.  It is as important to identify the
source of design failure as it is to document a completely
successful design.

ACQUIRING AN NSF-SPONSORED MOSIS ACCOUNT:

Users who wish to access MOSIS for the first time should fill
out an "Application to Use MOSIS for Educational Purposes".  To
request a blank form, send email to amosis@isi.edu and include
your phone number, fax number and U.S. mailing address in the message.
When your MOSIS account has been established you will receive a MOSIS
User Manual and a message containing account parameters.

							 

Return to MSN Home Page