[Course description]
Design for manufacturability (DFM) is the general engineering art of designing products in such a way that they are easy to manufacture, and function as expected. Achieving high-yield and high-performance designs utilizing state-of-the-art nanoscale integrated-circuit (IC) process technology has become an extremely challenging task due to the feature miniaturization and complexity growth trend following Moore's law. DFM includes a set of techniques to modify the IC designs in order to make them more manufacturable, to improve their functional yield, parametric yield, or reliability. This introductory course focuses equally on modeling, simulation, and design aspects of the subject. Students will get exposure to important physical concepts and mathematical skills for process variation modeling, circuit performance variation modeling, and robust design methods to minimize the variations. They are encouraged to develop and/or utilize some simulation tools, and integrate the concepts and knowledge learned within their final projects.