The CMOS IC Design Process The CMOS circuit design process consists of defining circuit inputs and outputs, hand calculations, circuit simulations, circuit layout, simulations including parasitics, reevaluation of circuit inputs and outputs, fabrication, and testing. A flowchart of this process is shown in Fig. 1.1. The circuit specifications are rarely set in concrete; that is, they can change as the project matures. This can be the result of trade-offs made between cost and performance, changes in the marketability of the chip, or simply changes in the customer's needs. In almost all cases, major changes after the chip has gone into production are not possible. This text concentrates on custom IC design. Other (noncustom) methods of designing chips, including field-programmable-gate-arrays (FPGAs) and standard cell libraries, are used when low volume and quick design turnaround are important. Most chips that are mass-produced, including microprocessors and memory,...