IDESA-2 · Implementation of widespread IC design skills in advanced deep submicron technologies at European Academia

The IDESA-2 project is a follow-up of FP7 IDESA-1 support action that addresses training of academic staff (professors, assistant professors and lecturers) from all interested European academia. The sole purpose of the IDESA-2 project is to continue making available didactic training material on the design flow for integrated circuits for advanced deep sub-micron technologies, free of intellectual property rights, for the benefit of European academia. Didactic material was developed and made available for reuse in the course portfolio of bachelor and master engineering curricula in IDESA-1. Training is organised in class-based hands-on sessions and advanced seminars using state-of-the-art multimedia technology over the web or on DVD.There currently is a road show of 4 different advanced implementation courses that tour different sites in Europe. These courses are hands-on courses using a train-the-trainer philosophy. All of these courses address the advanced implementation issues relating to the 90 nm process node. This brings the universities to a more advanced level of implementation skills to start engaging in 65- and 45-nm issues.The consortium has built a portfolio of public domain didactic seminars, addressing issues that are not addressed in the design flow courses but that start being of dominant importance for the 65 and 45 nm generation design flows. At the end of the IDESA-1 project (in May 2010), 35 didactic tutorials will be in the portfolio. The portfolio was established with the assistance of a Program Board consisting of representatives of the industry (both IDM and EDA) and of the Education and Training Working Group (ETWG) of ENIAC.IDESA-1 allowed to reach 16-25% of the target population (about 600 European universities, polytechnic schools and research institutes). The IDESA-2 project, that will only start after IDESA-1 is finished, intends to double the number of academia that will benefit from the ongoing IDESA-1 action.