Complete Digital IC Design Flow: From Concept to Silicon

No prior VLSI experience? No problem. This course is designed to take you from absolute beginner to an engineer capable of designing a complete, complex system chip—all the way from digital logic to a tape‑out ready GDSII file.

Most courses teach isolated pieces: a bit of Verilog, some timing, or a tool. This one is different. We walk you through the entire ASIC design flow in a structured, step‑by‑step way, assuming no background in chip design. You’ll start by understanding what a transistor is and how digital circuits work. Then, you’ll learn Verilog HDL through dozens of labs and assignments, progressing from simple counters to a 16‑bit ALU, register files, and finite state machines.

But front‑end RTL is only the beginning. We then dive into the critical implementation stages: TCL scripting to automate flows, Static Timing Analysis (STA) to fix setup/hold violations, low‑power design techniques used in modern mobile chips, and logic synthesis where RTL is transformed into gates. You’ll also master Clock Domain Crossing (CDC) with asynchronous FIFOs, Design for Test (DFT) with scan chains, and formal verification to ensure equivalence.

All of this culminates in a final system assignment—a UART‑based subsystem with a register file and ALU, which you then take through the physical design (PnR) flow using Cadence tools, ending with GDSII export. By the end, you will have built a chip from the ground up, with a portfolio project that proves your skills.