Spring 2002
UPDATE
A Newsletter of Industrial Research and Consultancy Centre

F O C U S

Microelectronics and VLSI at IITB: An Overview Juzer M. Vasi, Electrical Engg. Microelectronics and Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) deal with the design and fabrication of integrated circuits like microprocessors, memories and communication circuits. The growth of microelectronics the world over during the last 3 decades has been characterised by Moore's law ...more Linkages with Industry in India and globally Dinesh Sharma, Electrical Engg. In an area like Microelectronics and VLSI, active linkages with industry are important. The IIT Bombay group has always had strong ties with the industry ...more VLSI Manpower Training S. S. S. P. Rao, Comp Sci. & Engg Microelectronics and VLSI has been growing so rapidly globally that lack of trained manpower is hindering its further growth, especially in India ...more SIMULATION Circuit Simulation Activities at IITB H. Narayanan & Mahesh Patil, Electrical Engg. The design process for modern VLSI circuits continually throws up the challenge of simulating, on the computer, large electrical networks, before they are actually fabricated in the foundries. ...more Research on Asynchronous Systems Supratik Chakrabarty, Comp Sci.&Engg. The debate over whether to build VLSI digital systems synchronously or asynchronously is at least five decades old ...more VLSI Design and Networking Madhav Desai & Abhay Karandikar, Electrical Engg. Recepromisent advances in VLSI technology to deliver us the capability of building circuits with over ten million logic gates. This presents unique opportunities as well as problems. ...more Mixed Signal VLSI Design A. N. Chandorkar, Electrical Engg. The last 30 years have seen a phenomenal growth in VLSI, and in modern technological terms, it has truly become an interdisciplinary field ...more

MATERIALS		EMERGING AREAS
Materials Research for VLSI at IITB Rajiv O. Dusane Met. Engg & Mat Sci. It is interesting to note that although the number of transistors in a VLSI circuit keeps doubling every three years, SiO2 continues to be the gate dielectric material in MOS transistors ...more	Sub 50nm CMOS Technology Development at IITB V. Ramgopal Rao, Electrical Engg. By the year 2012, Microprocessor chips should have the ability to integrate 1 billion transistors onto a production die that will be operating at frequencies above 10 GHz ...more	Molecular Electronics at IITB V. Ramgopal Rao, Electrical Engg. Will silicon reign forever in Electronics applications? Many people believe that Molecular Electronics will provide important new directions for electronics in the coming years. ...more	MEMS and Bio-MEMS at IITB Rakesh Lal, Electrical Engg. Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, MEMS for short, had their origins in microsensors made on silicon for mechanical measurands. It began with silicon strain gauges and pressure sensors for space and biomedical applications ...more