The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NC State University will be launching it’s first Online Open Course (OOC) starting in the summer of 2013.

Digital ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuits) are at the core of all modern Information Technology. They rely on silicon chip technology to enable society to build complex systems including wireless devices, tablets, computers, network routers, and more. Due to the rapid rate of improvement of the underlying silicon technology, these chips are constantly being redesigned. Thus digital ASIC design companies are strong employers around the world.

Beginning on May 21st, 2013, this open online course will teach you how to design a digital ASIC (standard cell or FPGA) using the Verilog Hardware Description Language.  At the end of 10 weeks, you will have an understanding of what ASICs are, and how they are designed and verified — in addition, you will have demonstrated those skills via a small project. 

Anyone may enroll in this course. During the course you will use Windows based computer aided design tools that are freely available on the web. All the course content and automated/peer grading is identical to the regular on-campus version taught at North Carolina State University.

Students who successfully complete the online course with a grade of 80% or better will have an opportunity to "upgrade" their achievement. By enrolling as a non-degree studies distance education student and completing the human graded and proctored portions (not available in the pure online version), students can receive regular course credit from NC State University.

The instructor for this course — Dr. Paul Franzon, professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering — has twice been honored as the ECE Graduate Teacher of the Year. He was awarded the Australian Defense Medal in 2007. His primary teaching and research focuses on building microsystems (systems constructed of silicon chips, both analog and digital, and silicon micromachined components) for applications in computing, communications, sensors, robotics, and signal processing. Dr. Franzon is the Conference Co-Chair for the 2013 3DIC (IEEE International 3D Systems Integration Conference), that will be held in San Francisco, CA in October of 2013.

For information please go to http://go.distance.ncsu.edu/digital-asic/