IEEE SSCS Open-Source Ecosystem “Code-a-Chip” Travel Grant Awards at VLSI'25

List of Accepted Notebooks:

Name	Affiliation	Notebook Title
Nealson Li	Georgia Institute of Technology (USA)	Dynamically Pipelined Arithmetic Modules for Adaptive Critical Path Optimization
Utkarsh Sharma	UCLA (USA)	Automated Flash ADC Layout generator and Optimization

Note: Many thanks everyone for your participation! We recommend to resubmit your Notebooks to the next code-a-chip Notebook competition with revisions. We plan to send you a feedback from our reviewers. Stay tuned!

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). We run continuously the Code-a-Chip (CAC) competition for ISSCC and VLSI conferences with clear deadlines. 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 VLSI from June 8-12, 2025, 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, VLSI'24 and VLSI'23
  • ❗️Starting from the VLSI 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).
• 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.

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 VLSI25/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

• April 23, 2025, 11:59 AM Pacific Time: Notebook submission deadline (GitHub pull request)
• April 30, 2025: Announcement of winners
• May 2-5, 2025: Register for the conference, and obtain a letter for visa application (if needed)
• June 8-12, 2025: Attend the conference

The International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) 2025 Code-a-Chip Travel Grant Award is created to:

1. Promote reproducible chip design using open-source tools and notebook-driven design flows and
2. Enable up-and-coming talents as well as seasoned open-source enthusiasts to travel to the Conference and interact with the leading-edge chip design community.

FAQ

Contact

• Mehdi Saligane (mehdi@umich.edu)
• Boris Murmann (bmurmann@hawaii.edu)
• You can join the open-source slack channel to discuss your submissions or ask about tools issues etc. Channel name: #ieee-sscs-cac