Leveraging Open Source IC Design Tools for an Undergraduate Microelectronic Circuit Design Course

University-level undergraduate course in IC design is important to fill the current and future gap in semiconductor skills. This paper describes the planning and implementation of our third -year undergraduate course in IC design which leverages open-source IC design tools and the recently published manufacturable open -source CMOS 130nm PDK from Skywater supported by Google. A project-based learning approach was adopted to help achieve the learning outcomes of the course which include a wide spectrum of topics in IC design. Lessons learnt from the delivery of this course at Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) since its start during the pandemic in 2021 is discussed, where majority of students were able to complete designs from schematic to layout, however only 13% succeeded to produce error-free designs. Overall, the adoption of open source IC design tools in the presented course with a validated design that has been fabricated in the Efabless Open-MPW have brought a promising IC design education approach to encourage students into IC design.