Intern Project Suggestions

The following projects are suggested by ACAG members with an interest in supervising:

Summer Internships

• Investigating VLSI optimisation of a high-performance stack unit (Chris Bailey)

Circuit implementation options for high performance register files, and operand stacks is much more complex than a simple logic circuit composition. Transistor level implementation using techniques such as dynamic multiplexers and domino logic offer highly optimised solutions, which this internship will investigate,

• Evolving vision processing primitives for FPGA synthesis (Pears/Bailey)

Development of vision processing hardware components is complicated by the variations in FPGA families  and manufacturers. Being able to evolve primitives for a given device and under certain constraints such as gate area would be valuable.

• A simulation tool for 3-dimensional processor arrays (Austin/Bailey)

The BALLISTA project seeks to develop a 3-dimensional processing array utilising ire-free computing nodes. All data connectivity between nodes is via wireless protocols. A simulator that would allow some aspects of this system to be more deeply simulated, would be an important tool to allow further research to be conducted.

• A Graphical VLSI Mask Editor Tool for generating JavaBreadBoard Circuit behaviours (Bailey)

The JavaBreadBoard is a highly successful electronics simulator tool for use by students to experiment with digital systems in breadboard format. JBB allows custom chip designs to be loaded, and the generation of these designs can be independent of the JBB tool itself. Being able to define an IC mask layout using a graphical layer editor would allow extraction of circuit primitives such as transistors, reistors and wires, which can then be translated and imported into JBB. Students would then be able to design IC layouts and simulate them on the breadboard.