Invent a Chip

The contest "Invent a Chip" http://www.inventachip.at/ is organized by the Institute of Computer Technology (ICT) at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) and the Österreichischer Verband für Elektrotechnik (OVE). The audience are Austrian pupils in the age of 15-18 years, mainly of electrical and electronics education (HTLs). This year the contest is performed for the first time in Austria, but it is inspired and in light cooperation with the German model.

The pupils were invited to submit ideas to design and produce a micro chip. In February the jury selected the six best ideas and we invited these teams with a total of 15 pupils to participate in a three-day workshop in March. The pupils learned how to design their own chip (VHDL). Since the workshop they have time until end of June to develop and verify their chip idea. Afterwards their work will be assessed and ordered by its quality. The best work will be selected, synthesized and produced as a chip in a CMOS 0.35µm technology by Austriamicrosystems.

       

All pupils completing their design will be awarded with nice prices in November 2011. The first price will be awarded (besides the chip production) with iPads for each pupil. For the teams rated at places 2 and 3 we plan to give FPGA development boards, to realize their idea with reconfigurable logic. Places 4 to 6 will get micro-controller evaluation boards, mainly because most ideas are best suited for this platform.