The "Cadence Academic Network" was launched in 2007 by Cadence Europe. The aim was to promote the proliferation of leading-edge technologies and methodologies at universities renowned for their engineering and design excellence. A knowledge network among selected European universities, research institutes, industry advisors and Cadence was established to facilitate the sharing of technology expertise in the areas of verification, design and implementation of microelectronic systems.
Education
At the Institute of Electrical and Optical Communications Engineering Cadence software is an important component in education. It is utilized in various extents: from a workshop over a lab course up to a thesis.
Lab Course
The lab courses "Entwurf integrierter Schaltungen" (german) and "Physical Design of Integrated Mixed-Signal Circuits" introduce Cadence's development tools to students. At the beginning simple circuits which are made from scrach are investigated using transient, dc and ac analysis.
Theoretical basics of amplifiers like their transfer characteristic, non-linearity or noise are visualized by means of transient, dc, ac, noise and pss (periodic steady state) analysis. The Cadence Virtuoso Schematic Editor and Cadence Spectre are applied for the design or the simulation of circuits, respectively.
Layouts of circuits are drawn with Cadence Virtuoso Layout Editor and DRCs (design rule checks) are performed in order to eliminate violations of the design rules. Furthermore the topologies of all layouts have to match the corresponding schematics which is assured by LVS (layout-versus-schematic) checks.
Thesis
Students can make all kinds of bachelor-, research- and master thesis at the institute. Possible topics cover the development of new circuits, partial circuits for large projects and the redesign of circuits.
The practical part of the lab course and the thesis takes place at our CAD Laboratory. It provides a powerful client-server-infrastructure and the latest design software. In the thesis current research topics are discussed. Our students work with leading-edge design kits of famous semiconductor manufacturers.
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Contact
Thomas Veigel
Dr.-Ing.Research staff member