IEEE SSCS Open-Source Ecosystem “Code-a-Chip” Travel Grant Awards at VLSI'24

The IEEE SSCS Code-a-Chip Travel Grant Award was created to:

1. Promote reproducible chip design using open-source tools and notebook-driven design flows,
2. Enable up-and-coming talents as well as seasoned open-source enthusiasts to travel to IEEE SSCS conferences and interact with the leading-edge chip design community, and
3. Broaden educational value and accessibility within the open-source chip design community, fostering a more inclusive environment for dissemination, learning, and innovation.

Program Rules

• The program is open to anyone (no restrictions). IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS) membership is encouraged, but not required. Teaming is encouraged, but each team must identify a single leader who can travel to the Symposium on VLSI from June 16-20, 2024, to receive the award and participate in networking events.
• Applicants must submit an open-source Jupyter notebook detailing an innovative circuit design using open-source tools. The objective is to disseminate the main ideas and design choices using open-source tools and PDKs in a reproducible manner. Generating a final layout of your circuit is encouraged but not required.
  • Examples: inverter, temperature sensor
  • Submissions of previous winners: ISSCC'24, ISSCC'23 and VLSI'23
• Each submission must contain a suitable open-source license (e.g., Apache 2.0).
• Travel arrangements must comply with the IEEE Travel and Expense Reimbursement Guidelines and awardees must attend the conference in person to qualify for reimbursement.
• ❗️Starting from the ISSCC 2025 grant, the submission categories and criteria for selecting finalists will be expanded to include creative educational purposes of chip design. This can include:
  • innovative uses of Python packages for circuit visualization or generating animations to explain digital (e.g., D flip-flop) and analog (e.g., SAR ADCs) circuits,
  • exploring open-source PDKs to explain Figure-of-Merit (FoM) of building blocks with SPICE simulation results that demonstrate the value of FoM (trend, foresight, etc).

Evaluation

• A jury will evaluate the submissions and select up to 10 winners.

Grant Amount

• Travel grants of up to US$500 (for secondary students), up to US$2,500 (for undergraduate students), and between US$1,000-US$5,000 (for graduate students and all others) will be awarded. This award can be used to reimburse travel and a portion of your accommodations until the dollar amount is used up.

Program Logistics

• The notebooks must be submitted through a GitHub Pull Request at the SSCS Open-Source Ecosystem Code-a-Chip (OSE) GitHub portal.
  • Fork the source repo https://github.com/sscs-ose/sscs-ose-code-a-chip.github.io to your local repo.
  • Create a new directory VLSI24/submitted_notebooks/<my_project_name> in your local repo.
  • Add your Jupyter notebook to the directory.
  • Create a pull request from your local repo to the source repo.
• Notebooks submissions must follow guidelines in the How to Apply section.
• The winners are expected to attend the conference to be recognized for their awards and to present a poster.
• Reimbursement will be provided after the conference when air and accommodation receipts are sent to the conference Treasurer.

Program Schedule

• February 27, 2024, 8:00 AM Pacific Time: Info Session Zoom meeting link
• April 3 15, 2024, 11:59 AM Pacific Time: Notebook submission deadline (GitHub pull request)
• April 14, 2024: Announcement of winners
• April 17-21, 2024: Register for the conference, and obtain a letter for visa application (if needed)
• June 16-20, 2024: Attend conference

FAQ

Contact

• Mehdi Saligane ([email protected])
• Boris Murmann ([email protected])
• You can join the open-source slack channel to discuss your submissions or ask about tools issues etc. Channel name: #ieee-sscs-cac