Very-large-scale integration (VLSI) is the process of creating integrated circuits by combining thousands of transistor-based circuits into on a single chip. VLSI began in the 1970s when complex semiconductor and communication technologies were being developed.

The first semiconductor chips held one transistor each. Subsequent advances added more and more transistors, and as a consequence more individual functions or systems were integrated over time. The microprocessor is a VLSI device.

The first "generation" of computers relied on vacuum tubes. Then came discrete semiconductor devices, followed by integrated circuits. The first Small-Scale Integration (SSI) ICs had small numbers of devices on a single chip — diodes, transistors, resistors and capacitors (no inductors though), making it possible to fabricate one or more logic gates on a single device. The fourth generation consisted of Large-Scale Integration (LSI), i.e. systems with at least a thousand logic gates. The natural successor to LSI was VLSI (many tens of thousands of gates on a single chip). Current technology has moved far past this mark and today's microprocessors have many millions of gates and hundreds of millions of individual transistors.

As of mid-2004, billion-transistor processors are not yet economically feasible for most uses, but they are achievable in laboratory settings, and they are clearly on the horizon as semiconductor fabrication moves from the current generation of 90 nanometer (90 nm) processes to the next 65 nm and 45 nm generations.

At one time, there was an effort to name and calibrate various levels of large-scale integration above VLSI. Terms like Ultra-large-scale Integration (ULSI) were used. But the huge number of gates and transistors available on common devices has rendered such fine distinctions moot. Terms suggesting more-than-VLSI levels of integration are no longer in widespread use. Even VLSI is now somewhat quaint, given the common assumption that all microprocessors are VLSI or better.

VLSI Conferences

• ISSCC – IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference
• CICC – IEEE Custom Integrated Circuit Conference
• ISCAS – IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems
• VLSI – IEEE International Conference on VLSI Design
• DAC – Design Automation Conference
• ICCAD – International Conference on Computer Aided Design
• ESSCIRC – European Solid-State Circuits Conference
• ISLPED – International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design
• ISPD – International Symposium on Physical Design
• ISQED – International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design
• DATE – Design and Test in Europe
• ICCD – International Conference on Computer Design
• IEDM – IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting
• GLSVLSI – IEEE Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI
• ASP-DAC – Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference
• MWSCAS – IEEE Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems
• ICSVLSI – IEEE Computer Society Annual Symposium on VLSI

VLSI Journals

• TODAES – ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic System
• ED – IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices
• EDL – IEEE Electron Device Letters
• JETTA – Journal of Electronic Testing Theory and Applications
• T-CAD – IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems
• JSSC – IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits
• T-VLSI – IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems
• T-CAS II – IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Analogy and Digital Signal Processing
• SM – IEEE Transactions on Semiconductor Manufacturing
• SSE – Solid-State Electronics
• SST – Solid-State Technology

Top VLSI Companies

• Intel
• Texas Instruments
• Samsung
• Analog Devices
• ATI Technologies
• Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)
• ST Microelectronics
• NeoMagic
• Freescale Semiconductor
• Infineon
• IBM
• NEC
• Toshiba
• Nvidia
• Qualcomm
• National Semiconductor
• Sasken Communication Technologies Limited
• Renesas Technology
• Broadcom
• Tata Elxsi
• Micron Technology
• ARM_Ltd

See also

• Lynn Conway
• Carver Mead
• Design Rules Checking

Further reading

• Carver Mead & Lynn Conway, Introduction to VLSI Systems (Addison-Wesley, 1980)
• Neil H.E. Weste & David Harris, CMOS VLSI Design (Addison-Wesley, 3rd Edition)

External links

• Design of VLSI Systems
• The World VLSI Encyclopedia
• Association of fabless Semiconductor Companies

Communication engineering | Electronic engineering | Integrated circuits

VLSI | Integrationsgrad | VLSI | Intégration à très grande échelle | Very large scale integration