Teaching three-dimensional system-in-package design automation in a semester course

In recent years, three-dimensional (3D) system-in-package (SiP) has been widely recognized as a cost-effective alternative to system-on-chip (SoC). However, successful adoption of 3D SiP requires modifications to existing electronic design automation (EDA) tools to enable 3D SiP designs. Our previous courses focus on SoC design flow. Therefore, in our department, we develop a new course to offer students the concepts and experiences for 3D SiP design automation within a semester (18 weeks). Our teaching materials cover the overall 3D SiP design flow from front-end to back-end. Furthermore, during the course, students need to implement five computer-aided-design (CAD) tools for 3D SiP design automation. At the end of the semester, the evaluation of the course by students is very positive. Moreover, our students used the topic of 3D SiP design automation to participate in Taiwan IC/CAD contest, which is a national contest hosted by Ministry of Education of Taiwan, and won the first prize awards in recent two years.