Second SoC Design Challenge: What was so great about this event?
More than one hundred fifty people from six cities and eighteen universities took part in a competition organized by MIET in cooperation with YADRO tech Company. The scale of the event is much grander than last year; the participants came from more than 18 universities from Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Kazan, Yaroslavl, Nizhny Novgorod, and Volgograd. Among the participants there were students.
More than fifty teams competed in four tracks:
· Functional verification
· Topological layout design
· RTL design
· RTL Pro design
Participants in the topological design track were offered a case involving the implementation of a timer circuit and timer topology. The competitors were to select the correct counter and trigger structure, design the circuit and topology of the required standard logic elements, and then perform validation to meet the requirements. They designed the circuit diagram, and extracted parasitic elements in order to obtain the smallest topology area and delay time, and the highest operating frequency.
The functional verification track teams performed functional verification of a module using SystemVerilog Assertions. The module was supposed to simulate the operation of a vault controller according to the given specification, which included a finite state engine.
Participants competing in the RTL design track worked to increase the performance of a RISC-V RV32IM architecture four-stage processor core running the CoreMark test. As part of their case, they had to increase the maximum clock frequency and instructions per cycle (IPC).
Fourteen teams became winners and prizewinners. MIET students took the first place in the Topological Design track; the second place was taken by a team of participants from MIET and Saint Petersburg Electrotechnical University; the third place was shared by two teams at once: Moscow Power Engineering Institute and MIET.
The first and second place at the functional verification track were taken by two teams of MIET students, and the third place was shared by the team of Innopolis University and another MIET team.
MIET teams got the first and the second place at the RTL design track, and the team of Innopolis University took the third place.
A mixed team of participants from MIET and Moscow Engineering Physics Institute got the first place at RTL Pro design track; the second place was taken by the MIET team, and the third – by a team of representatives from three universities: N. I. Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University, and Kazan National Research Technical University.
"Practice is the most crucial stage on the path of engineers' professional growth, and we appreciate our fruitful cooperation with the YADRO Company. We are happy to diversify the educational track of our students with practical activities. Besides, the new trend for experienced engineers was also a success: more than 30 people took part in the competition," said Alexey Pereverzev, MIET Vice-Rector for Innovation.
