VSDSquadron FPGA Trainer Kit for High School Chip Design is now ready to ship — a complete hands-on platform to learn RISC-V, FPGA, and real chip design from school level.
If you’re trying to understand how a chip is actually designed end-to-end, this flow gives a clear picture.
From System Design → RTL → Synthesis → Physical Design → Signoff,
each stage has its own set of tools and learning curve.
For many students and professionals, the real challenge is not theory —
it’s getting structured, hands-on exposure across this full flow.
What’s encouraging today is that there are accessible ways to start exploring these stages step-by-step,
build small designs, and gradually move toward more advanced implementations.
That’s exactly the approach VLSI System Design (VSD) has been focusing on - helping learners move from concepts → labs → real design workflows.
If you’re looking to get started or go deeper with guided learning and hands-on labs, you can explore here:
https://www.vlsisystemdesign.com/vsd_products/
The goal is simple:
make it easier to learn by doing, at your own pace, with the right structure.
Been in this space for a while and something has always bothered me.
Most people I know who work with FPGAs - including myself for a long time - treat it as a black box. You write HDL, synthesize, place and route, deploy. You understand the timing constraints, the resource utilization, the tool flow.
But ask what a switchbox actually does, or how a LUT is physically constructed, or how the connection fabric routes signals between CLBs - and most people either go quiet or give a textbook one-liner.
I came across a workshop recently that specifically addresses this. Not an FPGA programming course. It teaches you to design the internal fabric itself in Verilog. LUTs, CLBs, switchboxes, connection boxes - you build them from scratch and simulate a working mini-FPGA architecture.
Here is what a participant built and published from a previous cohort:
github.com/ShonTaware/FPGA_Design_Fabric_Architecture
I genuinely could not find another course that goes this deep into FPGA internals. New cohort starts 18th May, registration closes in 10 days.
Workshop link: https://www.vlsisystemdesign.com/fpga/
Curious whether others have found resources that go this deep - or whether most people just accept the black box and move on.
I am being considered for a Senior ASIC / RTL Design Engineer role in Qualcomm India. My background is: PhD, MTech and BTech in EE/ECE from an IIT Around 1 year of postdoctoral research experience Research experience in DSP/VLSI, algorithm-to-architecture mapping, RTL design, ASIC/FPGA-oriented implementation, low-power/high-speed design concepts Publications/patents in signal processing/VLSI-related areas Academic/postdoc experience, but no long full-time industry experience yet The role is broadly related to wireless/DSP IP design, microarchitecture, RTL coding, front-end ASIC design, synthesis/STA awareness, lint/CDC, and low-power/high-speed design. I wanted to understand the current realistic compensation range in India for someone with this profile. Specifically: What CTC range should I expect for a Senior ASIC Design Engineer / Senior Engineer-level role at Qualcomm India? How is the CTC usually split between base salary, bonus, RSUs, joining bonus, and other benefits? Does a PhD + postdoc usually help in negotiation, or is it mostly treated similar to a fresh PhD entry? Is there a meaningful difference between Senior Engineer, Staff Engineer, and Senior Staff Engineer levels for PhD candidates in Qualcomm India? What range would be reasonable to negotiate for in 2025–2026 market conditions?
A hiring manager at a top semiconductor company told me this last week. I wasn't surprised.
India wants to train 1,000,000 chip engineers by 2030. Lam Research is building virtual fabs. The Tata Dholera fab hits First Silicon in December 2026.
But here's the quiet revolution nobody is talking about:
The chip design interview changed.
Recruiters at Qualcomm, Intel, and NVIDIA don't just read your resume anymore. They open a browser. They go to github.com/[your name]. They look for:
→ Did you do RTL-to-GDSII on a real design?
→ Can I see your physical design layout?
→ Did you actually tape out anything?
A student from a tier-3 college in India recently joined a top VLSI company. No IIT. No internship at a big firm. Just a public GitHub repo with a complete RISC-V SoC flow using open-source SKY130 PDK.
That repo was his resume.
At VLSI System Design (VSD), we built our entire philosophy around this: "Learning by doing" → GitHub → Job.
From RTL design to tapeout. From a ₹2000 VSDSquadron board to a public chip layout. No expensive cleanroom. No ₹50,000 EDA license. Just open-source tools, real projects, and a GitHub link.
The 1 million chip engineers India needs by 2030 won't be built in classrooms. They'll be built commit by commit.
Is your GitHub your resume yet?
👇 Drop your GitHub link below. Let's see what India's chip engineers are building.