Research in the Application of VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) to Signal Processing

摘要

Very large scale integration (VLSI) is defined, and reasons are offered as to why most informed observers believe that metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) technology will dominate in the future. One of the most important reasons is that as the device dimensions are reduced, improvements are obtained in essentially all performance characteristics of the resultant integrated circuits. Some of the implications of MOS technology to VLSI complexity are explored. It is shown that even at the limits of scaling, the device speed of MOS technology will have improved in 10 years only to the point where it is equivalent to today's advanced bipolar technologies. This means that the architectures for implementing signal processing algorithms must be developed to exploit, through parallelism, the increased number of devices that can be integrated onto a VLSI chip. It is predicted that access to VLSI technology will become increasingly limited and that the university community will have difficulties in realizing new concepts unless alternate methods of fabrication are developed.