MICROELECTRONIC SYSTEMS NEWS

FILENUMBER: 7013 BEGIN_KEYWORDS Workshop Report Rapid Prototyping Universities END_KEYWORDS DATE: july 1994 TITLE: Workshop Report on Rapid Prototyping for Universities Workshop Report on Rapid Prototyping for Universities (Contributed by Don Bouldin of the University of Tennessee) Under sponsorship of the National Science Foundation, eleven par- ticipants from universities and industry and seven individuals from the NSF met during October 18-19, 1993, to assess the unique needs educators have for rapid prototyping of microelectronic systems and to suggest potential solutions for continuously im- proving the state-of-the-art in U.S. universities. The following vision statement was adopted: Educate students who can use the paradigm of design, simulate, design-for-test, build and test (as opposed to just design, build and test) to create microelectronic systems, not just integrated circuits (ICs), of sufficient quali- ty that the global competitiveness of U.S. industry will be con- tinued and enhanced. From this statement a number of findings and recommendations were made. Some of these include: (1) Student projects should be simulated thoroughly prior to submission to MOSIS for fabrica- tion. (2) The use of Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) to support logic design and systems-oriented courses should be encouraged. (3) Fabrication services provided by MOSIS should be used largely for designs in which some portion has been per- formed manually. (4) NSF support for advanced classes should be broadened to include not only IC fabrication via MOSIS but also the acquistion of prototyping boards or multi-chip modules (MCMs) (5) Remote access via the Internet to expensive testers and prototyping systems should be made available. (6) MOSIS should add the following services: BiCMOS process, micro- electro-mechanical post-processing, optoelectronic device fabri- cation and MCM prototyping. (7) A national clearinghouse should be supported to provide ready access by the educational com- munity to existing and rapidly emerging resources that are presently dispersed. (8) Conferences, faculty enhancement short courses and newsletters should be supported to encourage widespread exchange of information. To obtain a copy of the workshop report, Click here. Alternately, you may request an email copy by contacting: dbouldin@utk.edu

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