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Since the invenTIon of integrated circuits thirty years ago, manufacturing ofelectronic systems has taken rapid strides in improvement in speed, size, andcost. For today’s integrated circuit chips, switching TIme is on the order ofnanoseconds, minimum feature size is on the order of sub-microns, transistorcount is on the order of millions, and cost is on the order of a few dollars.In fact, it was esTImated that the performance/cost raTIo of integrated circuitchips has been increasing at the rate of one thousand-fold every ten years,yielding a total of for the last three decades. A combination of high productperformance and low per-unit cost leads to the very pervasive introduction ofintegrated circuit chips to many aspects of modern engineering and scientificendeavors including computations, telecommunications, aeronautics, genetics,bioengineering, manufacturing, factory automation, and so on. It is clear thatthe integrated circuit chip will play the role of a key building block in theinformation society of the twenty-first century.The manufacture of integrated circuit chips is similar to the manufactureof other highly sophisticated engineering products in many ways. The threemajor steps are designing the product, fabricating the product, and testing thefabricated product. In the design step, a large number of components are tobe designed or selected, specifications on how these components should be assembledare to be made, and verification steps are to be carried out to assurethe correctness of the design. In the manufacturing step, a great deal of manpower,and a large collection of expensive equipment, together with painstakingcare are needed to assemble the product according to the design specification.Finally, the fabricated product must be tested to check its physical functionality.As in all engineering problems, there are conflicting requirements in allthese steps. In the design step, we want to obtain an optimal product design,and yet we also want the design cycle to be short. In the fabrication step, wewant the product yield to be high, and yet we also need to be able to producea large volume of the product and get them to market in time. In the testingstep, we want the product to be tested thoroughly and yet we also want to beable to do so quickly.The title of this book reveals how the issue of enormous design complexityis to be handled so that high quality designs can be obtained in a reasonableamount of design time: We use muscles (automation) and we use brain(algorithms). Professor Sherwani has written an excellent book to introducestudents in computer science and electrical engineering as well as CAD engineersto the subject of physical design of VLSI circuits. Physical design is akey step in the design process. Research and development efforts in the lasttwenty years have led us to some very good understanding on many of theimportant problems in physical design. Professor Sherwani’s book provides atimely, up-to-date integration of the results in the field and will be most usefulboth as a graduate level textbook and as a reference for professionals in thefield. All aspects of the physical design process are covered in a meticulousand comprehensive manner. The treatment is enlightening and enticing. Furthermore,topics related to some of the latest technology developments such asField Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) and Multi-Chip Modules (MCM)are also included. A strong emphasis is placed on the algorithmic aspect ofthe design process. Algorithms are presented in an intuitive manner withoutthe obscurity of unnecessary formalism. Both theoretical and practical aspectsof algorithmic design are stressed. Neither the elegance of optimal algorithmsnor the usefulness of heuristic algorithms are overlooked. ¿From a pedagogicalpoint of view, the chapters on electronic devices and on data structures and basicalgorithms provide useful background material for students from computerscience, computer engineering, and electrical engineering. The many exercisesincluded in the book are also most helpful teaching aids.
