Design at the system level with VLSI CMOS

This paper explores high-performance central processing unit (CPU) design with VLSI CMOS. Workstations are the focus, because they were first to apply the synergism of CMOS, VLSI, and reduced-instruction-set computing (RISC). But the advances of CMOS now encompass all computing system design, and extend to newly created environments. We discuss CMOS extendibility in the highest-performance areas.