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Concept
Mead–Conway VLSI chip design revolution
Summary
The Mead–Conway VLSI chip design revolution, or Mead and Conway revolution, was a very-large-scale integration (VLSI) design revolution starting in 1978 which resulted in a worldwide restructuring of academic materials in computer science and electrical engineering education, and was paramount for the development of industries based on the application of microelectronics.
A prominent factor in promoting this design revolution throughout industry was the DARPA-funded VLSI Project instigated by Mead and Conway which spurred development of electronic design automation.
When the integrated circuit was originally invented and commercialized, the initial chip designers were co-located with the physicists, engineers and factories that understood integrated circuit technology. At that time, fewer than 100 transistors would fit in an integrated circuit "chip". The design capability for such circuits was centered in industry, with universities struggling to catch up. Soon, the number of transistors which fit in a chip started doubling every year. (The doubling period later grew to two years.) Much more complex circuits could then fit on a single chip, but the device physicists who fabricated the chips were not experts in electronic circuit design, so their designs were limited more by their expertise and imaginations than by limitations in the technology.
In 1978–79, when approximately 20,000 transistors could be fabricated in a single chip, Carver Mead and Lynn Conway wrote the textbook Introduction to VLSI Systems. It was published in 1979 and became a bestseller, since it was the first VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) design textbook usable by non-physicists. ("In a self-aligned CMOS process, a transistor is formed wherever the gate layer ... crosses a diffusion layer." from: Integrated circuit § Manufacturing) The authors intended the book to fill a gap in the literature and introduce electrical engineering and computer science students to integrated system architecture. This textbook triggered a breakthrough in education, as well as in industry practice.
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