Center for VLSI and Embedded Systems (CVES), AIUB hosted their inaugural webinar on “Prospects of Chip Design Career in Bangladesh: Trends, Opportunities, and the Future” on June 19, 2022, Saturday. The webinar began at 7.00 PM with the participation of about 60 participants.

CVES invited two experienced professionals in the chip design industry Mr. Mithun Saha, Senior Engineer, ARM, Greater Bristol Area, United Kingdom, and Mr. Md. Anait Ullah Akash, Senior Physical Design Engineer, Penang, Malaysia. The program was moderated by Dr. Md. Jahid Hasan, Assistant Professor, Department of EEE, AIUB.

Prof. Dr. Abdur Rahman, Associate Dean, Faculty of Engineering, AIUB, commenced the webinar with a warm welcome to the distinguished speakers, participants, and attendees. He expressed that with the collaboration of industrial partners and professionals, AIUB will contribute to the growth of the VLSI industry and assist Bangladesh in attaining its 2041 vision.

Next, Mr. Mithun Saha began his talk titled "Semiconductor Industry (FPGA/ASIC Enthusiast)" by relating his own journey to Arm. Then, he went on the skills and expertise required for entry into the VLSI industry, why semiconductor is important, and challenges and opportunities for the semiconductor industry. He concluded his presentation by discussing FPGA and ASIC design flow, semiconductor development, and production schedules.

Later, Mr. Md. Anait Ullah Akash delivered his speech on “Place and Route Flow”, which began with a description of the Automatic place and route and where it fits in the ASIC flow. Then, he detailed each step of the place and route, e.g., logic synthesis, floorpanning, placement, clock tree synthesis, signal routing, and timing closure. Finally, he outlined the course requirements and skills needed to pursue a physical design engineer career.

The webinar's last session included a roundtable discussion in which experts shared their perspectives on various aspects of the semiconductor industry and answered questions from participants. This session was graced by the participation of different industrial experts include Mr. Md. Nazimuddowla (Lead Design Engineer, Synapse, Bangladesh), Mr. Usama Mahboob (Senor Engineer, Arm, UK), Mr. Md. Sadman Ferdous (Design and Verification Engineer, DSI Ltd, Bangladesh), Mr. Avi Debnath (Custom Analog Design, GlobalFoundries, Germany), Mr. Md. Kamrul Hassan (Analog Layout Design, Ulkasemi), Mr. Sudipta Das (PhD Researchers, Imec, Belgium), and Mr. Akib Zaidi ( Digital Functional Verification-MSc Thesis, Infenion, Germany).

At the end of the webinar, Mr. Chowdhury Akram Hossain, Deputy Director, CVES and Associate Professor, AIUB, thanked everyone with his inspiring closing remarks and honored the presenters with tokens of appreciation.