227-0085-41L Projects & Seminars: Memory Design: From Architecture Down to Basic Cells
| Semester | Autumn Semester 2022 |
| Lecturers | M. Luisier |
| Periodicity | every semester recurring course |
| Course | Does not take place this semester. |
| Language of instruction | German |
| Comment | Only for Electrical Engineering and Information Technology BSc. Course can only be registered for once. A repeatedly registration in a later semester is not chargeable. |
| Abstract | The category of "Laboratory Courses, Projects, Seminars" includes courses and laboratories in various formats designed to impart practical knowledge and skills. Moreover, these classes encourage independent experimentation and design, allow for explorative learning and teach the methodology of project work. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | What is the cache memory and how much of it does a PC need? What is the difference between DRAM and SRAM? What are bit lines, word lines, column decoders and sense amplifiers? What does precharging mean and where is it used? How does a memory cell look on silicon and how is it manufactured? You will learn these and many other things in this P&S. Memories are important components in all modern electronic devices (e.g: computer, smartphone, TV, ...). Depending on the area of application, an engineer can look at the storage system from different perspectives. This P&S gives an overview of these different perspectives and explains the relationships between them. Since these different perspectives are not only available for memory but for all integrated circuits in general, this P&S will help you to classify further specialized knowledge in a broader context. During the exercise part of the seminar, you will work with various simulation programs. These include sophisticated programs used by engineers in research and development. So you are going to practice on professional software, and during the simulations (exercise part) and group work / lectures (seminar part) you are going to develop basic knowledge that you can later deepen during the specialized lectures. According to the different perspectives, the P&S "Basic Memory Design" consists of three parts of roughly the same length: - System Design: In this part you are going to learn the various current storage types from the system developer point of view. What can you achieve? How are they built into circuits in order to obtain a storage system that offers the right size and speed with acceptable energy consumption? Since there are many different types of storage, the participants will study data sheets individually and will discuss them with the P&S assistants as part of a lecture (seminar part). With a simple cache simulator you will examine the influence of the design parameters in a memory hierarchy. - Circuit Design: In this part you are going to learn the memory as an electronic circuit. How the transistors have to be interconnected in order to be able to write, save and read out data? How should these transistors be dimensioned in order to achieve the desired speed or energy efficiency? With simulations you will experience how the engineer examines and optimizes such circuits. - Physical Design: This part goes even deeper. Millions of transistors on a small silicon wafer form a modern memory chip. How are the memory cells produced on the chip? What does a memory cell look like? How is the memory cell optimized? With the help of modern simulation tools, you will get to know the design practices that are used during development today. You will also learn about the methods and technologies used to manufacture modern integrated circuits. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Competencies |
|