A PC-based VLSI design and test system for education

A very-large-scale integration (VLSI) design system has been installed on IBM PC-AT computers to help teach integrated circuit design and test at the University of Washington. The PC-based system offers a reasonably complete set of tools for layout and test application. Since each PC is a single-user system, the performance of these tools exceeds that of larger time-sharing computers, assuming more than four users are doing layout at the same time. The computing strategy and technical implementation of the VLSI tool set on the PC-ATs is presented. The successes and problems of the system, as well as future plans for tool improvements, are discussed.<
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