New directions in VLSI teaching in London University

The London University VLSI Consortium was established in 1982 so that the Electronic Engineering and Computer Science Departments of London University could co-operate to obtain design tools and fabrication facilities for integrated circuit design teaching. At the time of the Eurochip initiative there were therefore established VLSI design courses at the five major sites of London University King´s College, Imperial College, Queen Mary and Westfield College, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College and University College. These courses all included fabrication of custom VLSI circuits, using full-custom design tools or SOLO 1400. Eurochip was therefore seen as an opportunity to improve the quality of the teaching that had already been established, and in particular to strengthen teaching areas considered to be of industrial importance but where the existing academic staff considered that they had limited expertise. The two areas that it was believed would benefit most from the introduction of new material were chip architectures (including the problems of managing complexity) and analogue design