ANN ARBOR—Two University of Michigan graduate students—Phiroze Parakh of Charleston, W.Va., and Todd Basso of Ypsilanti, Mich.—took first place honors in the 1996 Student VLSI (Very Large Scale Integrated Circuit) Design Contest.

The contest was sponsored by Advanced Micro Devices, Hewlett- Packard, Sun Microsystems, and Mentor Graphics. The U-M students won the experienced category with a design titled ” A High Speed CGaAs using Domino Logic.” They and two Rutgers University students, who won the novice category, shared $5,000 in prize money. Twenty-seven entries were submitted for this year’s contest.

” Advanced Micro Devices is committed to supporting higher education through university programs like this,” according to the firm. ” Through our partnership with Mentor Graphics, we are able to offer students the opportunity to enhance their technical skills through participation in innovative design programs beyond the classroom.”

” The VLSI design contest motivates the next generation of electrical and electronic engineers to get the training and the tools they need to excel,” Mentor Graphics said.

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