Foreward

17 years ago, I picked up my first Lego brick. 14 years ago, I built my first K’nex tower. 10 years ago, I wrote my first line of code and blinked my first LED. 6 years ago, I flashed my first FPGA.

These events happened years apart but are somehow part of the same journey; each one a critical piece in shaping how I became an engineer. In many ways, going back in time is like peeling back the layers of abstraction in a computer system, digging deeper and deeper until all that remains is the very thing that makes things tick.

For the longest time, I’ve enjoyed teaching others and passing on the little wisdom I have. No better words on the value of teaching have been said than by Richard Feynman, who neatly encapsulated the entire motivation for this course and others in his quote: “If you want to master something, teach it.” It’s with this spirit that I decided to apply my understanding of ASIC design to a very topical matter and assemble this course. My hope is that by addressing AI we can provide yet another avenue for more hardware engineers to enter this field.

I’m deeply grateful for all the support and mentorship I’ve received from everyone along my engineering journey: teachers, family, friends and work colleagues included. Without them, I never would’ve stepped into the incredibly rewarding world of chip design.