Cadence University Program Member

Welcome to the Cadence users resource page at the Rochester Institute of Technology. This page contains information about the Cadence design tools extensively used in classes and research programs in the electrical engineering department at RIT. Students obtain practical experience in advanced electronics design using state-of-the-art CAD tools, computing and laboratory facilities, and access to the MOSIS foundry for prototyping of integrated circuits.

Undergraduate Courses:

0301-205 Freshman Practicum
Introduction to the practice of electrical engineering including understanding laboratory practice, identifying electronic components, operating electronic instruments and building an electronic circuit.  Students will create schematic entry, modeling and simulation of an electronic circuit using Cadence SPB tools for Design Entry CIS and PSpice circuit analysis.

0301-610 Analog Electronic Design
Enhances the student’s skills in designing analog circuits and learning the use of Cadence Design Systems products. Subjects covered include non-ideal characteristics of op-amps, op-amp applications, A/D and D/A conversion, multipliers and modulators, phase-locked loop, frequency synthesis and audio power amplifiers.

0301-651 Physical Implementation

A technical elective that introduces students to the fundamental principles of Application Specific I.C. (ASIC) design. Both circuit design and system design are covered. The student also is introduced to CAD tools for schematic capture, placement and routing of standard cells. The projects are designed and simulated using a state-of-the-art commercial CAD environment provided by Cadence. Top-down design using a hardware description language (VHDL) is included.

Graduate Courses:

0301-726 Mixed Signal IC Design

This course covers basic analog functional blocks and mixed signal blocks, in CMOS technology. Topics include: device models, current sources and active loads, precision reference, operational amplifiers, comparators, sample and hold circuits and data converters design. Course involves circuit design and layout projects using Cadence Virtuoso SPECTRE.

0301-730 Advanced Analog IC Design

An advanced course in analog integrated circuit design. Students will study bipolar and MOS realization of operational amplifiers, analog multipliers, A to D and D to A converters, switched capacitor filters and more. The students will participate in design projects using Cadence software including circuit design, layout and SPICE simulation.

0301-820 Modeling & Simulation of Semiconductor Process & Devices

Semiconductor process-device-circuit simulation cycle is introduced. ATHENA process simulator is used for modeling and simulation of process technologies to develop semiconductor device structures. Physics-based device modeling of carrier transport and simulation of device characteristics using ATLAS device simulator are covered. Device and process simulation results are used for SPICE model parameter extraction. SPICE models are used for circuit simulation using Cadence SPECTRE. Circuit and device simulation results are used to adjust/verify semiconductor process sequences.

Research:

RF-Analog-Mixed Signal Laboratory (RAMLAB)

The focus of RAMLAB is to conduct research in the area of analog, mixed-signal and RF design. Research at RAMLAB is very diverse, ranging from analog circuit design to development of design methodologies for System in a Package (SiP) architectures. The National Science Foundation (NSF), Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), Harris Corporation, LSI Logic Inc., and several industrial partners fund research at RAMLAB. RAMLAB's external collaborators include Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Buffalo (SUNY), and University of Rochester. Research using Cadence Virtuoso SPECTRE RF Simulation products is being conducted in the following areas:

• RFIC Design
• Analog-RF Test Strategies
• Analog IC Design
• Chip-Package Co-design methodologies
• RFIC Design Methodologies
• Scalable Modeling for RF/Digital devices

Analog Devices Integrated Microsystems Laboratory (ADIML)

The ADIML Lab conducts research under the disciplines of analog integrated circuit design, semiconductor device physics, and MEMS in topic areas such as smart sensors, thin film transistors on glass, compact MOSFET device models, acoustic wave filters, display driver electronics, power harvesting, and RF telemetry. Researchers use the suite of Cadence CAD tools for simulation and physical design of integrated circuits and as a platform for testing new physical models for use in circuit simulation.

Cadence® is a trademark of Cadence Design Systems, Inc., 2655 Seely Avenue, San Jose, CA 95134

Rev. 11/14/2012
Contact: James Stefano, Jr.
jvseee@rit.edu