Modern electronics is concerned with implementing hardware functions in semiconductor chips and the software that runs these semiconductor circuits. Very large scale integration (VLSI) of electronic circuits and systems needs interdisciplinary work by device physicists, process developers, circuit designers, design automation specialists, and computer architects. This book covers all these topics, from semiconductor devices to systems, in a compact manner.

The text outlines the latest advances in semiconductor devices for VLSI circuits, but also includes simple and easy to use analytical models as well as results of device simulation. The section on circuits gives an overview of basic bipolar and field-effect transistor gates and is mainly devoted to CMOS standard cells and functional blocks (macrocells). The section on systems outlines the top-down design style of digital systems (mainly processors and memories) using functional blocks described in the previous circuit part. Finally some problems of testing and details of physical layout of chips are considered.