Aim
The development in digital integrated circuit design are continuously moving towards smaller and smaller transistors at the same time as more and more components can be integrated at the same silicon die. The circuit designer is thus facing new problems when new parameters are influencing the design work. Phenomenon like leakage and short channel effects in the transistors are some examples on that. New design methods are therefore required. New technologies will also require new methodologies for test and verification.

Another important area is design of arithmetic building blocks such as adders and multipliers, which are basic operations in many designs. There are a large number of opportunities when implementing digital circuits that give different results on speed, area, and power consumption. Clocking of digital synchronous circuits is an area with increasing problems today. Efficient clocking strategies and alternatives such as asynchronous design are studied.

Knowledge and understanding
For a passing grade the student must

• be able to describe the problems that confronts the designer when the technologies are passing on to future technologies in the nano-scale area,

• at a high level, be able to describe how advanced arithmetic is designed for different performance,

• be able to describe how to control and synchronize data flows in a complicated digital design and

• be able to describe the most common methodologies for test and verification of digital circuits.

Skills and abilities
For a passing grade the student must

• independently, or in a group of two, be able to take care of larger problems, on a high abstraction level, make reflections and apply their knowledge in order to find a useful method to solve it.

Judgement and approach
For a passing grade the student must

• be able to sort out important information independently, from an extensive material, such as textbooks and scientific papers in order to present it to a large group.

Contents
The course is to a large extent an in dept of the knowledge that is taught in the course Digital IC design. The students are expected to have the basic knowledge from that course in mind. This course give an advanced perspective where the student can are expected to be able to draw far-reaching conclusions by generalizing and abstracting over several domains and levels on the subject digital IC design. The course gives a deep perspective with problems from future technologies in the nano scale area viewpoints on performance and power consumption from a low up to a high abstraction level, including how it is applied on advanced arithmetic. A deep survey of how to control and synchronize data flows will be given, both within synchronous and asynchronous design. Methodologies for test and verification of digital circuits will be taught. A large part of the course will be dedicated to new perspectives on digital design, where the students are presenting different subjects to each other.

Literature
Rabaey J M, Chandrakasan A, Nicolic B: Digital Integrated Circuits: A Design Perspective, Prentice Hall International Editions, ISBN 0-13-120764-4. http://infopad.eecs.berkeley.edu/~icdesign
Recommended book: B. Parhami B: Computer Arithmetic: Algorithms and Hardware Designs, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-512583-5, http://www.ece.ucsb.edu/Faculty/Parhami/text_comp_arit.htm.
Additional material will be found at www.tde.lth.se/ugradcourses/a-dick