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TITLE: FREE SILICON PROTOTYPING FOR EDUCATION VIA MOSIS
MOSIS prototyping continues to be available for free for
educational purposes thanks to generous donations by the
Semiconductor Industry Association, AMI, HP-Agilent, IBM, DuPont
Photomasks, Intel, Motorola, Qualcomm, the IEEE Computer Society
Design Automation Technical Committee and the MOSIS organization
itself. Since 1981 students in the United States enrolled in
introductory and advanced classes on integrated circuit design
have been able to obtain free silicon prototyping via MOSIS under
government sponsorship by the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency and the National Science Foundation. As government funds
for this purpose declined, the MOSIS Advisory Council for
Education organized sufficient sponsors to continue this service
at no charge for qualified university classes anywhere in the
world. Over the past decade, 50,000 students have benefited from
this program with over 12,000 student designs being fabricated.
MOSIS has fabricated more than 40,000 integrated circuit designs
for commercial firms, government agencies and universites
combined.
The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) will sponsor the
MOSIS (MOS Implementation Service) Educational Program to provide
funding to fabricate and package integrated circuits designed by
university students.
"The US semiconductor industry is pleased to support the MOSIS
Educational Program, which enables electrical engineering
students to fabricate and test circuits which they design in VLSI
courses," stated George Scalise, SIA President. "Future economic
growth and our ability to overcome technological barriers depend
upon a supply of talented, well-educated graduates from US
universities."
MOSIS was organized in 1981 to provide the DARPA (Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency) research community cost-
effective access to advanced microelectronics fabrication. It
realized fast and cost-effective circuit prototyping by merging
multiple projects onto a mask set, and sharing the cost of masks
and wafer fabrication among these projects. MOSIS also provides
its prototyping services to commercial customers. With DARPA and
NSF (National Science Foundation) support, MOSIS expanded its
services to include chip fabrication for projects from approved
university courses. Students in these courses are required to
test their circuits and report the results to MOSIS, including
chip yield, correlation with simulations, and any design errors.
The MOSIS Educational Program became a critical part of the U.S.
VLSI educational infrastructure, with more than 200 US and
Canadian universities participating. Professor Carver Mead of
Caltech said in 1993, "Fab and test of real silicon are
essential. Our access to MOSIS is the envy of the rest of the
world. It gives our graduates the experience that it would take
10 years or more to gain in a traditional engineering career."
The MOSIS educational program has been in a tenuous position
since the government's phased withdrawal of support beginning in
1994. The fabrication of class projects has been continued
through the present time with generous donations of chip
processing, masks, and administrative services by AMI, HP, IBM,
DuPont Photomasks, and the MOSIS organization, and with cash
donations from AMD, Intel, Motorola, QUALCOMM, and the IEEE
Computer Society Design Automation Technical Committee. SIA's
$500,000 academic-year support of this program enables it to
continue into the future on a secure financial foundation.
University of Michigan Prof. Richard Brown, chair of the MOSIS
Advisory Council for Education said, "The availability of a rapid
prototyping service for VLSI class projects is vital if we are to
continue training students in the fundamentals of integrated
circuit design. For the U.S. to maintain its position in
microelectronics, some of our students must be educated in the
full range of VLSI issues, and it is important that they have the
opportunity to design and test custom ICs."
Gary Daniels, Former Sr. VP and General Manager of Motorola's
Microcontroller Technologies Group, said, "We have a serious
concern that without the experience offered through the MOSIS
Educational Program, graduating engineers will not have the
experience and maturity needed to fully and quickly contribute in
industry. We hope that universities will continue to offer full-
custom VLSI design courses, and we want students to be able to
tape-out and test their designs from these courses. These tasks
complete the design process, re-enforce design-for-test
principles, and provide relevance to the courses like nothing
else can."
The Semiconductor Research Corporation will administer the SIA
donation as part of a larger initiative to increase the number of
engineering students. Larry Sumney, SRC President and CEO said,
"Stable funding of the MOSIS Educational Program will encourage
universities to offer VLSI courses so that many students will
have the opportunity to design, fabricate and test integrated
circuits as part of their educational experience."
Cesar Pina, director of the MOSIS Service said, "I would like to
thank the SIA, the SRC, and the industrial and professional
organizations for their invaluable contributions toward
preserving the MOSIS Educational Program. Over the past ten
years, over 50,000 students have been enrolled in the program,
and over 12,000 student designs have been fabricated. I am
pleased that this service will continue to be available to
students in VLSI courses."
MOSIS is part of the Information Sciences Institute (ISI) of the
University of Southern California. It provides prototyping and
short-run production access to technologies ranging from 1.5-
micron analog processes to 0.18-micron digital processes. MOSIS
has fabricated more than 40,000 integrated circuit designs for
commercial firms, government agencies and universities. For more
information about the MOSIS organization, please visit
MOSIS WWW.
The Semiconductor Industry Association is the premier trade
association representing the semiconductor industry, with member
companies comprising more than 90 percent of U.S.-based
semiconductor production. In addition to supporting the MOSIS
program, the SIA has launched educational programs to support
long term growth that: train K-12 teachers in technology, work
with the Maricopa Advanced Technology Education Center (MATEC) to
partner with over 80 community colleges training semiconductor
technicians, and promote the industry among undergraduate
engineering students through the SRC. For more information about
the SIA and its programs, please visit SIA WWW.
Questions regarding:
MOSIS: Cesar Pina (cpina@mosis.org; 310-822-1511).
MOSIS Advisory Council on Education: Richard B. Brown
(brown@umich.edu, 734-763-4207).
SRC: Ginny Poe (poe@src.org, 919-941-9453).
SIA: Molly Marr (mmarr_sia@attglobal.net, 408-436-6600).
MOSIS Announces TSMC 0.18 Runs and Additional TSMC 0.25 Micron Runs
MOSIS FAB SKED.
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