VLSI
CS250
VLSI Systems Design
Fall 2010
Krste Asanovic’, John Wawrzynek with John Lazzaro and Yunsup Lee (TA)
Lecture 01, Introduction 1
CS250, UC Berkeley Fall ‘10
Why the heck is it CS250 and not
EE250?
‣ We answer that with a course history (with a few embedded lessons).
Warning: What follows is principally from memory. I’ve done my best to be accurate, but some errors or misinterpretations might exist. Starts in 1958 with the invention of the Integrated Circuit independently by Robert Noyce (co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor
Corporation) and Jack Kilby (engineer at Texas Instruments).
Lecture 01, Introduction 1
2
CS250, UC Berkeley Fall ‘10
IC Design in the 70’s and early 80’s
‣ Circuit design, layout, and processing tightly linked.
‣ Logic design and layout was “random”
‣ Chip design was the domain of industry (Fairchild, Intel, Texas
Instruments, …). These were IC processing companies. Those who controlled the physics controlled the creative agenda!
Federico Faggin,
Ted Hoff,
Stan Mazor
Introduced to help sell memory chips!
The Intel 4004 microprocessor, which was introduced in 1971.
The 4004 contained 2300 transistors and performed 60,000 calculations per second. Courtesy: Intel.
Lecture 01, Intro
3
CS250, UC Berkeley Fall ‘10
Meanwhile at Caltech…
‣ Car ver Mead was designing and building
‣
prototype ICs (with help from his friends at
Intel)
His background was in physical electronics
(invented several semiconductor devices such as the GaAs MESFET) but was deeply interested in the interaction of physical implementation and the higher level design of electronic systems:
"Listen to the silicon; find out what it's telling you."
Lecture 01, Introduction 1
4
CS250, UC Berkeley Fall ‘10
CS At Caltech
‣
Ivan Sutherland became founding head of the computer science division at CIT in
1974 (after leaving E&S)
‣
He and Mead teamed up to get the division off the
VLSI Systems Design
Fall 2010
Krste Asanovic’, John Wawrzynek with John Lazzaro and Yunsup Lee (TA)
Lecture 01, Introduction 1
CS250, UC Berkeley Fall ‘10
Why the heck is it CS250 and not
EE250?
‣ We answer that with a course history (with a few embedded lessons).
Warning: What follows is principally from memory. I’ve done my best to be accurate, but some errors or misinterpretations might exist. Starts in 1958 with the invention of the Integrated Circuit independently by Robert Noyce (co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor
Corporation) and Jack Kilby (engineer at Texas Instruments).
Lecture 01, Introduction 1
2
CS250, UC Berkeley Fall ‘10
IC Design in the 70’s and early 80’s
‣ Circuit design, layout, and processing tightly linked.
‣ Logic design and layout was “random”
‣ Chip design was the domain of industry (Fairchild, Intel, Texas
Instruments, …). These were IC processing companies. Those who controlled the physics controlled the creative agenda!
Federico Faggin,
Ted Hoff,
Stan Mazor
Introduced to help sell memory chips!
The Intel 4004 microprocessor, which was introduced in 1971.
The 4004 contained 2300 transistors and performed 60,000 calculations per second. Courtesy: Intel.
Lecture 01, Intro
3
CS250, UC Berkeley Fall ‘10
Meanwhile at Caltech…
‣ Car ver Mead was designing and building
‣
prototype ICs (with help from his friends at
Intel)
His background was in physical electronics
(invented several semiconductor devices such as the GaAs MESFET) but was deeply interested in the interaction of physical implementation and the higher level design of electronic systems:
"Listen to the silicon; find out what it's telling you."
Lecture 01, Introduction 1
4
CS250, UC Berkeley Fall ‘10
CS At Caltech
‣
Ivan Sutherland became founding head of the computer science division at CIT in
1974 (after leaving E&S)
‣
He and Mead teamed up to get the division off the