Academics Related Activities

of CEERI's IC Design Group

AcSIR MTech/PhD Programmes

AcSIR (Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research) has started to function at CEERI, Pilani from December, 2010. Prior to this, 2-year PGRPE programmes (equivalent to MTech) were started in August, 2009 and August, 2010. These have now been merged into AcSIR. Various group members have been involved in the teaching of the following courses:

CMOS Digital VLSI Design.
CMOS Analog Design.
Advanced VLSI System Architectures.
Technical Communications.
Project Management.
Advanced Self-study (Special Topic).

One student has been admitted to the AcSIR PhD programme under the supervision of Dr. A. S. Mandal in January-February, 2011.

Academic Cooperation for MTech (Mechatronics) with BESU, Shibpur

CSIR (represented by CEERI-Pilani, CSIO-Chandigarh and CMERI-Durgapur) signed a MOU with BESU, Shibpur (West Bengal) in Febrauary, 2007 (and renewed in February, 2010) for a MTech degree programme in Mechatronics.

The first batch of students under this programme were admitted in August, 2007 by BESU.

The students spend the first semester at BESU, Shibpur.

The second semester course work is distributed among the three CSIR labs and all the students spend a part of their second semester at each of the labs. From July, 2009, the second semester stay of students is only at CSIO and CMERI.

At the end of the second semester, the students are distributed among the three CSIR labs for their project work to be done in the third and fourth semesters. Additionally, the students assigned to each CSIR lab. in the third semester need to complete an elective course that will be run at that lab.

The fourth semester of the MTech (Mechatronics) will be spent completely on the project work by the student at the assigned CSIR lab.

The courses offered under this programme at CEERI, Pilani in the second semester for the first two batches were :

Embedded System Design.
MEMS Technology and Design.
MEMS Laboratory.

In addition to the project work, the elective offered under this programme at CEERI, Pilani in the third semester is :

HDL-based FPGA Design.

The academic linkages mentioned below are being utilized for projects involving exploration of various design alternatives/design optimization strategies/designing of portions of large circuits through MTech theses (as well as shorter BTech projects).

Once in a while, we also explore newer areas and do "pure" academic exercises with these students.

Academic Co-operation with IITs, NITs, etc.

We are acting as a Resource Centre (RC) under DIT's project on "Special Manpower Development for VLSI Design and Related Software." The first phase of the project was from December, 1998 to March, 2005 and the second phase of the project is from April, 2005 to March, 2010.

The programme aims to strengthen the MTech/ME degree programmes at various IITs, IISc, NITs and other leading institutes/universities.

Please see the list of current projects and past projects for more details.

Academic Co-operation with BITS, Pilani

CEERI and BITS, Pilani have a MoU from November, 1988 to May, 2002 and renewed since June, 2005 for academic interaction and participation of CEERI scientists in course teaching at BITS, Pilani for various ME degree programmes (Microelectronics, Embedded Systems, and Communications) as well as for organizing joint workshops and proposing joint projects.

Dr. S. C. Bose is teaching a course on "Advanced Analog and Mixed-Signal Design" at BITS, Pilani since the August-December, 2007 semester under this MoU.

During January-May, 2006 semester, a course on "Advanced Analog and Mixed-Signal Design" was taught by Dr. S. C. Bose of CEERI, Pilani.

The course taught by CEERI faculty during August-December, 2005 was on "System Specification and Modeling" (Dr. R. S. Shekhawat and Sh. Raj Singh).

In addition to the above programmes, some students from other branches and degree programmes also do their theses/projects with us.

The earlier MoU from November, 1988 till May, 2002 was primarily for a joint ME (Microelectronics) degree programme. This degree programme was first of its kind in India and formed the basis for similar degree programmes that were subsequently introduced in the country by IITs, RECs/NITs, etc. under various names of "IC Design", "VLSI Design", "VLSI Design and Embedded Systems", etc.

Under this MoU members of the IC Design Group (IDG) and the Digital Systems Group/Information Technology Group (DSG/IFG) taught 5 full-semester courses and conducted laboratories for their courses. The students did their theses/projects with us at IDG.

The IDG members taught the following four (4) full-semester courses and conducted the associated labs :

IC/VLSI Design.
CAD for IC Design.
VLSI Architectures.
Analog CMOS IC Design.

Also, the labs for the following courses were done for many years at CEERI (these also include special lectures by CEERI persons) by the Microelectronics Technology Group (MTG) :

VLSI Technology.
Device Physics.

Academic Co-operation with IIT, Delhi

CEERI and IIT, Delhi had a MoU during August, 1994 to July, 1999 for academic cooperation.

CEERI provided laboratory training and supplementary lectures for IC Technology course (under the Electrical Engineering Department) for the MTech students of IIT, Delhi. This activity continues even after the end of the above MoU's duration.

CEERI also arranged supplementary lectures and exposition of design case-studies for IIT, Delhi students who spent their winter/summer breaks at CEERI, Pilani.

The co-operation included regular faculty-level exchange visits for discussions on topics of mutual research interest in Microelectronics and Power Electronics.

Dr. Chandra Shekhar from CEERI visited IIT, Delhi's Electrical Engineering Department as a faculty for the period July, 1997 to December, 1997.

The review report (from August, 1994 to June, 1997) of the MoU with IIT, Delhi is also available. This MoU formally terminated in July, 1999. However, most of the activities still continue.

Other Academic Co-operations

Currently, MoUs exist with DAIICT-Gandhinagar, KU-Kurukshetra, BV-Banasthali, I2IT-Pune, MCET-Lakshmangarh, etc.

Earlier MoUs existed with IIT-Kanpur, VRCE-Nagpur, etc.

BTech/MTech students from various NITs and other engineering colleges also come for theses/projects to CEERI, Pilani.

We also act as a resource center and give our advice for Microelectronics / VLSI Design / Embedded Systems related courses to many universities and institutes e.g. UPTU, Lucknow; GJUST, Hisar; Nirma University, Ahmedabad; KU, Kurukshetra.

We also maintain a list of books related to Microelectronics, VLSI Design, DSP, Computer Science, MEMS, Mechatronics and other related topics that is shared with over 50 academic institutes.

Invited lectures are given by many of the team members during their visits to IITs, NITs and various other academic institutes.

Contact Raj Singh for any suggestions or problems.

_{Updated : March 18, 2011

Created : July 25, 1997}