ANGWAY, Mclawry B.

BSME 2

Integrated circuit design, or IC design, is a subset oI electrical engineering and computer
engineering, encompassing the particular logic and circuit design techniques required to design
integrated circuits, or ICs. ICs consist oI miniaturized electronic components built into an
electrical network on a monolithic semiconductor substrate by photolithography.IC design can be
divided into the broad categories oI digital and analog IC design. Digital IC design is to produce
components such as microprocessors, FPGAs, memories (RAM, ROM, and Ilash) and digital
ASICs. Digital design Iocuses on logical correctness, maximizing circuit density, and placing
circuits so that clock and timing signals are routed eIIiciently. Analog IC design also has
specializations in power IC design and RF IC design. Analog IC design is used in the design oI
op-amps, linear regulators, phase locked loops, oscillators and active Iilters. Analog design is
more concerned with the physics oI the semiconductor devices such as gain, matching, power
dissipation, and resistance. Fidelity oI analog signal ampliIication and Iiltering is usually critical
and as a result, analog ICs use larger area active devices than digital designs and are usually less
dense in circuitry.Modern ICs are enormously complicated. A large chip, as oI 2009 has close to
1 billion transistors. The rules Ior what can and cannot be manuIactured are also extremely
complex. An IC process as oI 2006 may well have more than 600 rules. Furthermore, since the
manuIacturing process itselI is not completely predictable, designers must account Ior its
statistical nature. The complexity oI modern IC design, as well as market pressure to produce
designs rapidly, has led to the extensive use oI automated design tools in the IC design process.
In short, the design oI an IC using EDA soItware is the design, test, and veriIication oI the
instructions that the IC is to carry out.