About us

Led by Dr. Teju Das, RAMLab designs analog, RF and mixed-signal integrated circuits and carries them through the complete flow, from architecture to characterized silicon in commercial foundry processes. Analog circuits are usually treated as the interface between the physical world and digital systems. We are interested in what they can do, and what they can be made to do, when they stop being only that.

Our group works in four areas: biosensing systems and low-power analog, time-domain neuromorphic computing, analog and mixed-signal hardware security, and analog circuit design with emerging devices. All four are pursued from device physics through circuit topology to system architecture.

The applications that drive this work are implantable and wearable sensing, energy-efficient AI hardware, and the trustworthiness of the chips underneath both.

Students take their own designs through that flow, and recent graduates have gone on to companies such as Cirrus Logic, AMD, Texas Instruments, and Bose.

Teaching

Courses directly related to the semiconductor/chip design focus area are listed below. Please get in touch with Dr. Das to learn more about these courses:

EEEE-480
4 Credits
This is an introductory course in analog electronic circuit analysis and design. The course covers the following topics: (1) Diode circuit DC and small-signal behavior, including rectifying as well as Zener-diode-based voltage regulation; (2) MOSFET current-voltage characteristics; (3) DC biasing of MOSFET circuits, including integrated-circuit current sources; (4) Small-signal analysis of single-transistor MOSFET amplifiers and differential amplifiers; (5) Multi-stage MOSFET amplifiers, such as cascade amplifiers, and operational amplifiers; (6) Frequency response of MOSFET-based single- and multi-stage amplifiers; (7) DC and small-signal analysis and design of bipolar junction transistor (BJT) devices and circuits; (8) Feedback and stability in MOSFET and BJT amplifiers.
EEEE-610
3 Credits
This is a foundation course in analog integrated circuit design and is a prerequisite for the graduate courses in RF & mixed-signal IC design (EEEE-726 and EEEE-730). The course covers the following topics: (1) Review of CMOS technology, MOSFET models and Frequency Response (2) Single-stage amplifiers (3) Current mirrors and biasing (4) Current and voltage references (5) Differential amplifiers (6) Cascoding (7) Feedback and Stability (8) OTAs (9) Matching and layout techniques (10) Multi-stage op-amps (11) Noise Analysis (12) Linearity in analog circuits (13) Switched-cap circuits.
EEEE-620
3 Credits
The purpose of this course is to expose students to complete, custom design of a CMOS digital system. It emphasizes equally analytical and CAD based design methodologies, starting at the highest level of abstraction (RTL, front-end)), and down to the physical implementation level (back-end). In the lab students learn how to capture a design using both schematic and hardware description languages, how to synthesize a design, and how to custom layout a design. Testing, debugging, and verification strategies are formally introduced in the lecture, and practically applied in the lab projects. Students are further required to choose a research topic in the area of digital systems, perform bibliographic research, and write a research paper following a prescribed format.
EEEE-712
3 Credits
An advanced-level course on MOSFETs and submicron MOS devices. Topics include MOS capacitors, gated diodes, long-channel MOSFETs, subthreshold conduction and off-state leakage, short-channel effects, hot-carrier effects, MOS scaling and advanced MOS technologies.
EEEE-720
3 Credits
In this course the student is introduced to a multitude of advanced topics in digital systems design. It is expected that the student is already familiar with the design of synchronous digital systems. The lecture introduces the operation and design principles of asynchronous digital systems, synchronous and asynchronous, pipelined and wave pipelined digital systems. Alternative digital processing paradigms are then presented: data flow, systolic arrays, networks-on-chip, cellular automata, neural networks, and fuzzy logic. Finally, digital computer arithmetic algorithms and their hardware implementation are covered. The projects reinforce the lectures material by offering a hands-on development and system level simulation experience.
EEEE-726
3 Credits
This is the first course in the graduate course sequence in analog integrated circuit design EEEE-726 and EEEE-730. This course covers the following topics: (1)Fundamentals of data conversion (2) Nyquist rate digital-to-analog converters (3) Quantization noise and analysis (4) Nyquist rate analog-to-digital converters (5) Sample and hold circuits (6) Voltage references (7) Static and dynamic testing of digital-to-analog converters (8) Cell based design strategies for integrated circuits (9)Advanced topics in data conversion.
EEEE-789
3 Credits
Topics and subject areas that are not regularly offered are provided under this course. Such courses are offered in a normal format; that is, regularly scheduled class sessions with an instructor.


Supplementary courses to consider:

CMPE-361
3 Credits
The objective of this course is to build the knowledge and skills necessary to design, evaluate, and implement secure hardware systems. Course topics will span the fundamentals of hardware security and trust, which may include security principles and properties, encryption/decryption, side-channel attacks, hardware manufacture and test, physically uncloneable functions (PUF), true random number generation, hardware trojan detection, secure system design, and trusted execution environments. Laboratory assignments and projects facilitate the hands-on learning of course topics including cryptographic hardware design, side-channel attacks, integrated circuit test and verification, PUFs, true random number generation, and secure system design using a field programmable gate array (FPGA) and an embedded processor as an implementation platform.
CMPE-677
3 Credits
Machine intelligence teaches devices how to learn a task without explicitly programming them how to do it. Example applications include voice recognition, automatic route planning, recommender systems, medical diagnosis, robot control, and even Web searches. This course covers an overview of machine learning topics with a computer engineering influence. Includes Matlab programming. Course topics include unsupervised and supervised methods, regression vs. classification, principal component analysis vs. manifold learning, feature selection and normalization, and multiple classification methods (logistic regression, regression trees, Bayes nets, support vector machines, artificial neutral networks, sparse representations, and deep learning).
CMPE-789
3 Credits
Graduate level topics and subject areas that are not among the courses typically offered are provided under the title of Special Topics. Such courses are offered in a normal format; that is, regularly scheduled class sessions with an instructor.
EEEE-530
3 Credits
Study of fundamental principles of electronic instrumentation and design consideration associated with biomedical measurements and monitoring. Topics to be covered include biomedical signals and transducer principles, instrumentation system fundamentals and electrical safety considerations, amplifier circuits and design for analog signal processing and conditioning of physiological voltages and currents as well as basic data conversion and processing technology. Laboratory experiments involving instrumentation circuit design and test will be conducted.
EEEE-715
3 Credits
This course focuses on photonic integrated circuits (PICs) - an emerging technology where photonic chips (consisting of waveguides, lasers, detectors, modulators and more) are manufactured using integrated circuit technology and closely integrated with microelectronics. The circuits are finding applications in high performance communication, computing and sensing systems. The technology is rapidly growing in complexity and demand, and as the advantages of using photons are realized and the manufacturing hurdles are overcome, photonic circuits will become ubiquitous in future microsystems. Course topics include, fundamental concepts (waveguides, interference, light-matter interaction), PIC component modeling, schematic and layout driven design, PIC fabrication techniques, and PIC testing to round out the students understanding of integrated photonics.
MCEE-601
3 Credits
This course introduces the beginning graduate student to the fabrication of solid-state devices and integrated circuits. The course presents an introduction to basic electronic components and devices, lay outs, unit processes common to all IC technologies such as substrate preparation, oxidation, diffusion and ion implantation. The course will focus on basic silicon processing. The students will be introduced to process modeling using a simulation tool such as SUPREM. The lab consists of conducting a basic metal gate PMOS process in the RIT clean room facility to fabricate and test a PMOS integrated circuit test ship. Laboratory work also provides an introduction to basic IC fabrication processes and safety.

Our Values

  1. Integrity:
    always comes first.
  2. Continuous improvement:
    our only true benchmark is the previous version of ourselves.
  3. Scientific humility:
    the more we learn, the more we realize how little we know.