BITS Pilani to start IC design teaching lab

Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, has struck a deal with Rochester Institute of Technology, New York, to start a research lab in Bangalore.

The lab will work on analog, radio frequency and mixed signal technologies. The Apex lab (for Applied Research and Professional Excellence) will be ready in three months.

It will anchor masters and doctoral programmes for the semiconductor industry recruits in India, V S Rao, deputy director, off-campus programmes of BITS, told reporters here on Thursday.

The collaboration between the two universities has been "catalysed" by the Indian Semiconductor Association (ISA), says a member, Rajendra Kumar Khare, managing director of Broadcom India.

Broadcom India is a subsidiary of the US-based fabless chip design company for wireless communication, Broadcom. ISA will continue to foster industry interaction with the new lab, he said.

The Apex lab will also get outsourced industry-sponsored research projects from RIT, says P R Mukund, director of RAMLAB (for radio frequency, analog and mixed signal), a research lab in RIT's department of electrical engineering.

Mukund says, "Almost all the projects at our lab is industry-funded." They are reviewed every year and "when next year's reviews come there will definitely be scope for chanelling work to Bangalore".

Mukund, his two colleagues and their five graduate students, funded by companies like Kawasaki Microelectronics and LSI Logic, work on areas including RFIC design, analog-RF test strategies, analog IC design, chip-package co-design methodologies, RFIC design methodologies and scaleable modelling for RF/digital devices.

The Apex lab will have an extension of BITS' always-on semiconductor design lab equipped with powerful networked computers and electronic design automation software, Rao says. BITS will make an initial investment of Rs 1.5 crore to set up the Bangalore lab.

It will draw international best-in-class faculty, from both academia and industry.

BITS will also administer the courses run at Apex and take responsibility for testing and certification of students. Intake per course will be limited to between 20 and 30 students per batch and course fees could vary from Rs 10,000 to Rs 30,000.

Apart from BITS and RIT, faculty are likely to come from Stanford University, University of Minnesota, University of California, NetLogic, Logic Vision, Magma Design Automation, University of Texas, Central Electronics Engineering Research Institute, Pilani and the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, Rao said.