Project demonstrations, expert talks, alumni insights mark VLSI Day

VLSI Day 2025 offered the attendees a comprehensive perspective on semiconductor trends, industry expectations, and career pathways. In his opening remarks. Dr. Satya Gupta, President, VLSI Society of India emphasized the crucial collaboration between industry and academia in advancing semiconductor design. He stressed the goal of enabling each student to experience a tape-out during their academic journey. He encouraged students to not only use but also design RISC-V processors, highlighting that the entire tape-out process mirrors real-world industry practices. Ms. Malini Narayanamoorthi, Country Head, Renesas India spoke about the importance of resilience, especially for women, in pursuing their passions. She drew parallels between cartoons predicting the future and AI-driven technological advancements, underscoring that semiconductors are the backbone of AI. She emphasized on the CASE framework, Connectivity, Artificial Intelligence, Sustainability/Safety and Electrification/ Electronics as the need of the day. Mr. Gaurav Goel, Senior Principal Engineer, Renesas spoke on memory devices – past and future. In addition to mentioning the developments in conventional memories such as DRAM and DDR, he also highlighted the emergence of HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) and CXL (Compute Express Link) which are shaping the future of memory technology. Mr. Jaidev Shenoy, Senior Staff Manager, Marvell Semiconductor focused on AI neural networks and data center interconnects, discussing accelerated infrastructure for AI. He explained Advanced Packaging Techniques such as 3D packaging, 2.5D chiplet technology and AI power consumption mentioning that one ChatGPT query consumes 10x the energy of a typical Google search. Dr. Utsav Banerjee discussed hardware accelerators and post-quantum cryptography, focusing on Low – power vs high – efficiency, Secure Designs, Post-Quantum Cryptography and design goals. Dr. Govinda Rao Locharla spoke about Variable-Length FFT/IFFT Processors, focusing on Algorithm-Architecture Mapping, Resource Sharing, Compressed Coefficient Storage and Staggered Word Lengths. Dr. Viveka K.R, Assistant Professor and Infosys Young Investigator, IISc explained the work carried out at IISc on Energy-Quality Scalable NoCs where he discussed reducing energy consumption in Network-on-Chip (NoC) designs using low-swing links and prioritizing critical bits. The other areas he spoke about are In-Memory Computing, Side-Channel Attack Detection and AI Energy Efficiency Gap where he compared energy demands of large AI models like GPT-4 and BERT, stressing the need for hardware-level optimizations. Dr. Anand Mukhopadhyay, Senior Engineer, MathWorks spoke about Digital System Design and Verification using MATLAB. His talk focused on Model-Based Design where he explained how MATLAB and Simulink enable faster prototyping and testing of digital systems. He added that MATLAB testbenches can be used to verify RTL designs for reduced design cycle times. He concluded by highlighting his research on energy-efficient VLSI architectures for neuromorphic computing using Spiking Neural Networks (SNN). The panel discussion had seven alumni who graduated between 2021 and 2023 and are currently working at IISc, Cadence, Synopsys, In-core Semiconductors, AMD and Systematics. The discussion provided insights into career growth in VLSI. The key points discussed were the necessity to broaden curiosity beyond coursework, importance of understanding the real-world applications of engineering work and need to move beyond blindly coding components to grasping their impact in larger systems. The alumni also stressed the importance of fundamental courses taught. The event showcased seven student projects, including five using embedded boards donated by Renesas and two other innovative projects, highlighting practical applications of VLSI design. The VLSI Day began with homage to beloved founder chairman, Dr. M. R. Doreswamy after which Prof. M S Sunita introduced the guests and anchors and Ms.Yukti and Mr. Prathyush student leads of Silicon club touched upon current VLSI trends in India, highlighting semiconductor developments in Gujarat and Assam, and Renesas contributions to India’s semiconductor design ecosystem. VLSI Day 2025, a gathering of industry experts, academicians, and students to discuss the latest advancements and opportunities in the field of VLSI was held on March 8, 2025 at RR campus.