About

The UofT ASIC Team brings hands-on integrated circuit design to undergraduate students at the University of Toronto.

Reach us at team@uoftasic.com for questions, applications, and collaborations.

ASICs?

Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) are the cornerstone of modern electronics. These (mostly) tiny devices are foundational to our digital society. The process of fabricating Integrated Circuits (ICs) is known as taping out, or tapeout for historical reasons.

Overview

We work to provide IC design experience and opportunities to undergraduate students at the University of Toronto. Students touch different aspects of IC design throughout their Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) curriculum, but are seldom given the opportunity to practically apply these skills to design and fabricate their own IC.

We partner with TinyTapeout and the Free and Open Source Silicon (FOSSi) community to facilitate these opportunities, using open-source software for digital, mixed-signal, and analog IC design.

Who are we?

We are the UofT ASIC Team — a student group focused on IC design projects, education, and community at the University of Toronto. Our team is open to any interested student; you do not need prior tapeout experience to get involved.

What do we do?

Our work is organized around four initiative areas. Each program runs throughout the academic year unless noted otherwise.

Learning about IC design

Internal Education Series — Asynchronous projects, documentation, and guided material to introduce the open-source IC toolchain (LibreLane, OpenLane, and related tools). The goal is to get interested engineers skilled up and ready to design their own IC.

Guest Lectures — Talks from industry and academia on topics that scale from classroom knowledge to professional practice. Event details are posted on our Luma calendar.

Designing your own ICs

Design Kompetition — Project proposals — Students propose and develop their own IC projects on a rolling basis. Submissions include milestones, director involvement, development structure, and technical documentation referencing existing designs.

Design Kompetition — Project development — Once projects are selected, members contribute to design, layout, optimization, verification, and validation through the full IC design cycle, with tapeout typically targeted about six months into development.

IC Hackathon — A week-long design sprint where students onboard quickly through workshops and mentorship, then submit a design for judging and prizes. Our inaugural hackathon in 2026 showed what undergraduates can accomplish in just seven days; we plan to continue this initiative during reading week each spring.

Growing the tools for IC design

FOSSi Foundation contributions — Students interested in the software backbone of IC design can contribute to open-source CAD and EDA tools used across the community. Details for this initiative are announced as opportunities open up.

Building a community

Webmaster — Maintains our web presence and technical infrastructure.

Social media & graphics — Grows our brand across platforms and shapes how the world interacts with undergraduate IC design at UofT.

CanMUX — Partnership with schools across Canada (including UWaterloo, UCalgary, and York) on the Canadian Microelectronics Undergraduate eXpo, an undergraduate-focused IC design conference.

IC Hackathon — Organization — Logistics, planning, judging, marketing, and event operations for our annual hackathon.

Our mission

  1. Creating practical IC design opportunities for students
  2. Contributing back to the open-source silicon community
  3. Creating resources for anyone interested in IC design

About our team (2026–27)

The team is led by Vraj Prajapati and Saptarshi Talukdar, with subteam directors for Webmaster, Socials, CanMUX (UofT liaison), IC Hackathon organization, and Education. Director roles are filled through rolling recruitment — see Get Involved below.

We are building on two years of grassroots work. Our SimProc processor was taped out on the TinyTapeout TTSKY25b shuttle in November 2025, and the 2026 IC Hackathon marked a major milestone for undergraduate IC design at UofT.

Team structure

Leadership

  • 2 Team Leads — Overall strategy and coordination
  • Subteam directors — Webmaster, Socials, CanMUX liaison, IC Hackathon organizing, and Education (recruiting throughout the year)

Kompetition projects

Student-led IC projects are accepted on a rolling basis. Once approved, members onboard onto active projects and work toward tapeout milestones.

Our impact

  • Inaugural IC Hackathon (2026) — A week-long sprint introducing students to full IC design workflows
  • Rolling Design Kompetition — Multiple student-led projects moving toward tapeout each year
  • Open membership — Any student can join and contribute to initiatives year-round
  • National collaboration — CanMUX partnerships with universities across Canada

Get involved

General membership

Any student can join as a member and help with any initiative you are interested in.

  1. Fill out the membership form
  2. Join the UofT ASIC Discord
  3. Introduce yourself and the teams you want to work with

Membership is open year-round.

Directorship

We recruit directors for subteams such as Webmaster and Socials. To apply, email team@uoftasic.com with your portfolio and why you are interested. We will follow up with interview details.

Contact us