The event, delivered by Vulkos in partnership with the University's Bristol Electrical and Electronic Engineering Society (BEEES), was the first chip-design workshop of its kind for Bristol students and formed part of UniChip, an inter-university initiative giving students across the UK and Europe practical experience in semiconductor design.
Students from Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and other STEM disciplines were introduced to the fundamentals of digital logic before learning how to simulate their ideas, transform them into chip layouts and prepare them for potential manufacture.
By the end of the session, many participants with little or no previous experience had created their own chip designs and were encouraged to continue developing them through UniChip competition teams.
Computer chips power everything from smartphones and medical devices to artificial intelligence systems, yet chip design is often seen as a specialised field accessible only to those with extensive training and industry experience. The workshop aimed to break down those barriers by providing students with hands-on access to the tools and knowledge used in the sector.
Matt Groves, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Vulkos, which began life as a master’s research project at the University of Bristol’s Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, said: “We started Vulkos as students ourselves, after finding out first-hand how hard it is to get into chip design. Hands-on experience is hard to come by. The professional tools can take up to nine months to get running in a university lab, under licence agreements and strict NDAs. And most students never meet the people who do this for a living.
“On Tuesday, within five minutes, we had a room of more than 50 students beginning to design their own chips, straight from their web browsers. Plenty of students are motivated and interested. Initiatives like Vulkos give them the hands-on skills and bring industry face-to-face with brilliant talent that might never have had the chance before.”
The Bristol workshop is one part of a wider UniChip programme being delivered across five universities over two months. Alongside the University of Bristol, participating institutions include the University of Cambridge, Gdańsk University and Riga Technical University.
The workshop also brought students face-to-face with industry leaders. Leonardo Coppi, a University of Bristol graduate, IET Future Talent Award Scholar and Graduate Silicon Engineer at Bristol-based technology company Graphcore, attended as a guest speaker, while engineers from Arm and Imagination joined the session to share insights into careers in semiconductor engineering.
Coppi said: “It was great attending the Vulkos UniChip workshop and getting the opportunity to help inspire the new generation of chip designers. Being able to break down barriers and make digital design more accessible is crucial for fostering the chip design industry and seeing students leave the workshop with new skills and a clearer direction of travel was inspiring.”
Jameel, an MSc student in Optoelectronic and Quantum Technologies at the University of Bristol, said: “With Vulkos I can generate a chip design with ease. I liked the VGA game creation part of the experience.”