Vlsi means VERY LARGE SCALE INTERGRATION.

VLSI is the process of creating integrated circuits by combining

thousands of transistors into a single chip.
The Microprocessor is a vlsi device.
The size and cost of circuits is reduced by vlsi by making 1000 of
circuits with diodes and resistance to a single chip.
The vlsi is designed by using HDL (HARDWARE DESCRIPTION LANGUGE).
The HDL is developed to VHDL & Verilog HDL.
The Vlsi is designed by using
1.SPLD(Simple Programming Logic Device)
2.CPLD(Complex Programming Logic Device)
3.FPGA(Field Programming Gate Array)

HISTORY:
VLSI began in 1970s when complex semiconductor and communication
technologies were being developed.
The first integrated circuits held only a few devices, perhaps as
many as ten diodes, transistors, resistors and capacitors, making it
possible to fabricate one or more logic gates on a single device.
Current technology has moved far past this mark and
today's microprocessors have many millions of gates and billions of
individual transistors.

The vlsi is designed by using the MOORES LAW.

Current designs, as opposed to the earliest devices, use
extensive design automation and automated logic synthesis to lay
out the transistors, enabling higher levels of complexity in the
resulting logic functionality.
VLSI technology is moving towards radical level miniaturization with
introduction of NEMS (NANOELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEM) technology.
Moore's law describes a long-term trend in the history of
computing hardware whereby the number of transistors that
can be placed inexpensively on an integrated
circuit doubles approximately every two years.
The capabilities of many digital electronic devices are
strongly linked to Moore's law: processing speed, memory
capacity, sensors and even the number and size
of pixels in digital cameras.
Moore's law describes a driving force of technological and
social change in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.








ASIC and FPGA design flow Advanced digital design
methodologies
HDL based design methodologies
Synthesis coding styles
Place and Route - HDL based design
Static Timing Analysis


APPLICATIONS OF VLSI:
1. DSP
2. Communications
3. Microwave and RF
4. MEMS
VLSI chiefly comprises of Front End Design and Back End
design these days. While front end design includes
digital design using HDL, design verification through
simulation and other verification techniques, the
design from gates and design for testability, backend
design comprises of CMOS library design and its
characterization.
It also covers the physical design and fault
simulation.
Generally, the entire design procedure follows a step
by step approach in which each design step is followed
by simulation before actually being put onto the
hardware or moving on to the next step.


Basic specifications like Floating point units, which system to
use, like RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) or CISC
(Complex Instruction Set Computer), number of ALUs cache size
etc.
The actual logic is developed at this level. Boolean
expressions, control flow, word width, register allocation etc.
are developed and the outcome is called a Register Transfer
Level (RTL) description. This part is implemented either with
Hardware Descriptive Languages like VHDL and/or Verilog.
Gate minimization techniques are employed to find the simplest,
or rather the smallest most effective implementation of the
logic.
While the logic design gives the simplified implementation of
the logic, the realization of the circuit in the form of a
netlist is done in this step.
Gates, transistors and interconnects are put in place to make
a netlist.
This again is a software step and the outcome is checked via
simulation.

The conversion of the netlist into its geometrical
representation is done in this step and the result is called
a layout.
This step follows some predefined fixed rules like the lambda
rules which provide the exact details of the size, ratio and
spacing between components.
This step is further divided into sub-steps which are:

Floor Planning and Placement:
Choosing the best layout for each block from partitioning
step and the overall chip, considering the interconnect area
between the blocks, the exact positioning on the chip in
order to minimize the area arrangement while meeting the
performance constraints through iterative approach are the
major design steps taken care of in this step.
Routing:
The quality of placement becomes evident only after this
step is completed. Routing involves the completion of the
interconnections between modules.
This is completed in two steps.
First connections are completed between blocks without
taking into consideration the exact geometric details of
each wire and pin.
Then, a detailed routing step completes point to point
connections between pins on the blocks.

Extraction and Verification:
The circuit is extracted from the layout for comparison
with the original netlist, performance verification, and
reliability verification and to check the correctness of
the layout is done before the final step of packaging.


The chips are put together on a Printed Circuit Board or a Multi
Chip Module to obtain the final finished product.
VHDL stands for very high-speed integrated circuit hardware
description language. Which is one of the programming language
used to model a digital system by dataflow, behavioural and
structural style of modeling.
This language was first introduced in 1981 for the department of
Defense (DoD) under the VHSIC programme. In 1983 IBM, Texas
instruments and Intermetrics started to develop this language.
In 1985 VHDL 7.2 version was released. In 1987 IEEE standardized
the language.
In the semiconductor and electronic
design industry, Verilog is a hardware description
language (HDL) used to model electronic systems.
Verilog HDL, not to be confused with VHDL (a competing
language), is most commonly used in the design,
verification, and implementation of digital logic chips at
the register-transfer level of abstraction.
It is also used in the verification of analog and mixed-
signal circuits.
A complex programmable logic device (CPLD) is a programmable
logic device with complexity between that of PALs and FPGAs, and
architectural features of both.
The building block of a CPLD is the macrocell, which contains
logic implementing disjunctive normal form expressions and more
specialized logic operations.

The programming in vlsi can be done 2 ways. They are
1. CPLD
2. FPGA

FPGAs contain programmable logic components called "logic
blocks", and a hierarchy of reconfigurable interconnects that
allow the blocks to be "wired together"somewhat like many
(changeable) logic gates that can be inter-wired in (many)
different configurations.
Logic blocks can be configured to perform
complex combinational functions, or merely simple logic
gates like AND and XOR. In most FPGAs, the logic blocks also
include memory elements, which may be simple flip-flops or
more complete blocks of memory.


There many companies inventing new devices in compatible with
VLSI but the programmers in the vlsi is very limited.
vlsi is a vast unit of subject but still in India programmers is
very so we have to improve our programming teqniques in vlsi.
Vlsi has the vast of applications in programming and Artificial
intelligence.