Introduction to VLSI Systems

by Carver A. Mead, Lynn Conway

Introduction to VLSI Systems. Carver Mead. Copyright 1980, Addison-Wesley, Philippines. Hardcover in fair condition. edges rubbed, slightly cracked. NO dust jacket. Shelved in Technology. The Bookman serving Colorado Springs since 1990.

Genres: Engineering, Reference, Technology

396 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1979

Reviews

[Paco Nathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

History indeed... back so so long ago, I had this as a text book for a 3-term course sequence in VLSI. Totally cutting-edge material at the time. John Hennessy taught the first course, a lecture series. Then a recent PhD named Mark Horowitz became a professor and taught the remaining two courses in the series. That's where we designed an NMOS chip, then had it manufactured at the MOSIS fab. I worked with one partner to create a polyphonic synthesizer in NMOS. One of the most difficult projects that I'd ever had... It was unheard of at the time for students to be able to manufacture IC chips. This was seriously a life-changing experience, and the kind of thing you'd only find at a school like Stanford, CMU, etc. Of course, these capabilities spread far and wide eventually, but timing is everything. My introduction to VLSI layout was actually my avenue into data science, where my first big success on a commercially important data mining project was on behalf of Microchip, modeling a kind of pattern in their Verilog libraries. John went on to become president of Stanford University and Mark went on to become the founder of Rambus. FWIW, I went on to navigate the Reagan-era recession as a recent grad, and moved east to join Bell Labs.

[Nick]

According to prof. dr. Rabaey in Chips, this textbook from 1979 has educated a whole generation of students. It contains Mead's and Conway's design rules. The design of integrated circuits (IC) was being decoupled from the production technology.
Before that, if you wanted to design a chip, you had to be kind of an 'electronics hero and have a deep knowledge of both design and the fabrication technology of the manufacturer were your IC was going to be produced. This book changed that and made IC design more accessible.

[Andromeda Robins · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had a major focus on the physics of VLSI systems, which while undoubtedly being important to many things, was not the form of information I was looking for. The text felt a little disjointed and scattered in my reading, quickly moving between very disparate topics without much connectivity as to why each topic was relevant and how it connected to previous topics.

[Fred Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was groundbreaking at the time, but obviously this technology moves so fast, it's an antique now. But a great study of form and function.