VLSI Design Flow: Circuit (IC) by Combining Thousands of Transistors Into A Single Chip. VLSI

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Very-large-scale integration (VLSI) is the process of creating an integrated

circuit (IC) by combining thousands of transistors into a single chip. VLSI


began in the 1970s when
complex semiconductor and communication technologies were being
developed. The microprocessor is a VLSI device.

Before the introduction of VLSI technology, most ICs had a limited set of
functions they could perform. An electronic circuit might consist of a CPU,
ROM, RAMand other glue logic. VLSI lets IC designers add all of these
into one chip.

The electronics industry has achieved a phenomenal growth over the last
few decades, mainly due to the rapid advances in large scale integration
technologies and system design applications. With the advent of very large
scale integration (VLSI) designs, the number of applications of integrated
circuits (ICs) in high-performance computing, controls, telecommunications,
image and video processing, and consumer electronics has been rising at a
very fast pace.

The current cutting-edge technologies such as high resolution and low bit-
rate video and cellular communications provide the end-users a marvelous
amount of applications, processing power and portability. This trend is
expected to grow rapidly, with very important implications on VLSI design
and systems design.

VLSI Design Flow


The VLSI IC circuits design flow is shown in the figure below. The various
levels of design are numbered and the blocks show processes in the design
flow.

Specifications comes first, they describe abstractly, the functionality,


interface, and the architecture of the digital IC circuit to be designed.

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