Design of a Low Voltage/Low Power Mixed Analog/Digital ASIC in Continuing Education

From our recent experience on training in ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) design, this paper shows how SMEs (Small and Medium sized Enterprises) can benefit from continuing education to enter the field of microelectronics in order to add ASICs in their products. A low voltage/low power mixed analog/digital ASIC was designed by a student during the one year final project required to achieve the engineering degree prepared through the French CNAM (Centre National des Arts et Metiers) continuing education program. This circuit is intended to domotic applications and we show how such a training has lead the SME to continue towards an industrial version of this ASIC. The introduction of this new ASIC into the current products of the SME is foreseen for October 1998.