Industry sponsored ‘Professional VLSI Training’ launched at UIU

VLSI Training Academy (VTA) of the Dept of EEE, UIU has launched industry sponsored "Professional VLSI Training Programme" for the development of skilled engineers. 

The inauguration ceremony was held at UIU Campus on Monday (24 July), reads a press release. 

Md Enayetur Rahman, CEO and president of Ulkasemi Limited; Md Shakhawat Hossain, chief executive officer of Neural Semiconductor Limited, DBL Group and Ishraq Tashdid from Dynamic Solution Innovators were present as sponsors of the training programme. 

The welcome address was delivered by Prof Dr M Rezwan Khan, executive director of Institute for Advanced Research and Professor Emeritus, UIU; Prof Dr Md Abul Kashem Mia, vice-chancellor (in-charge) of UIU presided over the inaugural ceremony. 

The vote of thanks was delivered by Prof Dr Raqibul Mostafa, former dean, SoSE, UIU.

Considering the importance of manpower development in this sector, the sponsors are supporting this training programme by refunding the training fee once the candidates get a job in their companies after completion of the training. It is estimated that Bangladesh needs approx 500 trained VLSI designers per year, having a background of CSE and EEE, to keep a healthy growth of this sector.

Presently, the global semiconductor industry, estimated at $481 billion in 2018, is dominated by companies from the US, China, Europe, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. Industry insiders estimate that Bangladesh's chip-design industry currently earns up to $7 million annually while neighboring India is earning around $60 billion. 

Earnings from our chip-design industry are predicted to reach $1 billion within next 5 years if this sector gets appropriate support from the policy makers. Unlike RMG sectors, where value addition is of the order of 20%, income from chip-design industry will have a value addition of more than 90%. 

VTA ( https://www.facebook.com/uiuvlsi/ ) also plans to offer VLSI related other training courses on Verification, Physical Design, RTL Design, and DFT. Dept of EEE has signed a MoA with Tahoe, a Silicon Valley based training company to provide training support. This is the first such programme in Bangladesh where industry is providing complete support for skilled manpower development in the VLSI sector.

Faculty members, officials, academicians, students and other distinguished guests were present in the inaugural ceremony.