Advanced Electronics Design Suite- A Unique Research Grade Facility

A unique research facility is developed in the Faculty of Engineering & Technology (FET), namely, “Advanced Electronics Laboratory – Design Suite”. The laboratory is focused to facilitate students and researchers to design and model VLSI/ULSI devices, circuits and systems. The “Design Suite” is equipped with state of the art, trade-off commercial design tools such as Silvaco TCAD, Cadence (Analog/Custom/digital IC design bundle), Soft MEMS (Mems Pro), Mentor Graphics HEP (IC Nanometer design; Design, Verification & Test; PCB Expedition; Embedded SW Development), IBM SRIM/TRIM and SUSPRE. The Design Suite is unique in a sense that it caters the concept of an ‘Electronic Design House’, where such facilities are available under one roof. Some of these tools are available in few universities in Pakistan here and there; but perhaps the concept of “one-window design suite” is pioneered in International Islamic University, Islamabad. The Design Suite will particularly focus on the design applications related to micro and nano-scale physical processes, next generation devices, circuits and systems (including MEMS) from process to circuit to package level. The first training received by ten participants including the faculty members and Ph.D students was held from 4th to 6th March, 2010 in the Design Suite. The trainer; Mr. Shahab Najmi; came from SILVACO, Malaysia and trained Master trainers for subsequent runs of trainings. This is a multi-million Rupees facility aimed to train our future electronic engineers for global electronic design industry as well as address research problems in line with International Technology Roadmap of Semiconductors (ITRS).