This proposal develops a simulation-based project oriented curriculum to bootstrap a nanotechnology track among undergraduate engineering programs, with initial emphasis on computer science and engineering. The proposal develops three courses, five experimental modules for each of the courses, and web-based courseware for wider distribution of the materials.
The proposal investigates methodologies and tool sets for nanoscale design and integrates them into a novel engineering curriculum. It advances nanoelectronics education and provides students with the ability to perform futuristic nanodesigns. The free exchange of courseware and simulation-based education enables low-cost learning of nanotechnology compared to a traditional experimental approach. The proposal promotes discovery in nanoelectronics and nanotechnology due to advanced simulation, experiments, and design. The proposal replaces experimental-based highly-expensive nanotechnology education with simulation-based low-cost nanotechnology education.
This nanotechnology educational program contributes to building a workforce in the nanotechnology industries. The project-centered nanoelectronics courses provide a unique learning opportunity for faculty and students in computer science and engineering.
Nanosystem is next generation computing and sensing systems built using nanoscale devices and sensors. These are integrated systems exploiting nanoelectronic devices and instruments. The broad objective of this project and course is to study nanosystem organization, its architecture. This course also does provide hands on explanation using design tools. This allows the students to realize nanosystem that outperforms current integrated systems in terms of power, performance, and capabilities. This project has been an exploratory attempt to develop some courseware on nanoelectronics topic. The courseware developed has been on nanosystem architecture built around nano-CMOS logic components. The following topics were addressed towards outcome: Introduction to Nanoscale electronics- recap of nanoscale devices. Overview of general nanosystem architecture Understanding of nanosystem building blocks Hands on experience in building an example nanosystem using simulation tools. The details of an on-chip register file or buffer has been studied. The lessons from it is applied in the exercise of building nanoscale synchronous FIFO module, which is an essential component in high speed desynchronized SoC. The nano-CMOS buffers that goes with network on chip for low power and high performance has been developed and published in a conference for information dessimination. Simple simulation tools can be used to design nanosystem modules and new architectures.
