he very name application-specific integrated circuit, or ASIC, con­ T notes an ability to provide a dense package for a highly complex design targeted at a focused, often complex solution. The ability to create customized high-performance designs has come of age, facilitated by so­ phisticated tools that enable designers to cope with ever-increasing de­ mands for added product functionality, features, and complexity. Most designers are trained in the traditional methods of approaching complex digital electronics with standard parts but have little, if any, exposure to custom or even semicustom integrated circuit design. Most see only a broad survey of IC technology. This book is targeted at the new ASIC designer who is getting ready to tackle that first ASIC design and is concerned about the unknowns that lie ahead. Economic and perfor­ mance considerations as well as tool capability and process fabrication quality have evolved to the point where consideration of ASIC design is now commonplace in an ever-increasing number of electronic systems designs. Engineers are now given the challenge of coping not only with new technologies but with new design methodologies that are fundamen­ tally necessary and advantageous to support new competitive high-tech products. Laypeople and engineers alike have marveled at the advances made over the years in electronics' complexity, performance, density, and cost. The migration of systems to modules to boards to integrated circuits clearly underscores the radical transition that the physical incarnation of electronics has undergone.