Essential Electronic Design Automation (EDA)

Introduction

We discuss IC manufacturing briefly because many of the IC design issues and terms stem from the manufacturing process. The EDA tools that support the design deal with the same terms and issues.

Integrated Circuits (ICs) are made from semiconductors. Semiconductors are materials which conduct electricity poorly. They conduct better than insulators (such as glass), but less than conductors (such as gold or aluminum).

Most ICs are made from silicon, a brittle metallic-looking material. Silicon is the main ingredient of common sand (quartz, made of silicon and oxygen).

The basic IC building block is a transistor. Semiconductor manufacturing technology can create of hundreds of millions of transistors per chip. The process integrates ...