The first EDA MOOC: Teaching design automation to planet earth

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) can deliver advanced course material at planetary scale, combining internet-based video content delivery, and cloud-based assignments. From March to May 2013, I taught the world's first EDA MOOC, entitled VLSI CAD: Logic to Layout, based on roughly 20 years of experience teaching electronic design automation in a conventional face-to-face classroom setting. Over 17,000 participants registered for this MOOC. This paper summarizes my experience with teaching EDA at planetary scale: how we covered ASIC synthesis, verification, layout, and timing; how we built cloud resources to enable students to experiment with open-source tools; how we designed software projects and deployed cloud-based auto-graders to support realistic EDA tool projects. The paper also discusses what MOOCs could mean to the dynamism of the EDA community.