Fundamentals of Layout Design for Electronic Circuits 1st ed. 2020 Edition

My interest and involvement in layout design for electronic circuits spans several decades. During this time, I have seen many books on the subject, and a common theme has always been their focus on CAD tools and underlying algorithms (placement, channel routing, etc).The problem I have always had with these books on “physical design” is that they focus mainly on obtaining a result (i.e., “tool steps”) but tell you little about why the layout was generated that way – what are the underlying physical constraints (capacitance, crosstalk, electromigration, etc) that the tool is working to minimize? How do these forces interact? What is required and why is it required to lay out a circuit? And furthermore, how is it best done? How to read a layout view? Such questions are rarely raised, and seldom answered in previous physical design books.Fortunately, this book takes a different approach, first introducing the reader to the underlying “fundamental” challenges of physical-design layout. It does this by describing the physical conditions to be mitigated (e.g., parasitics, electromigration) and how key physical structures and techniques (e.g., polygons, wires, vias, sizing) can be used to systematically reduce them. The result early on in the book is a much deeper understanding of the layout process – not only “how” a layout is constructed (the steps), but more importantly “why” various techniques are used, and why they are often used in combination, during various phases. That is, what would constitute a “perfect layout” given they physical constraints, and why is this difficult to achieve? What techniques can be employed to meet these specific challenges? Are they complementary? What are their drawbacks? And so on.In my opinion, this type of fundamental knowledge is essential to both the aspiring student, and the practicing engineer. Although tools and techniques change over time, often quite rapidly, this fundamental knowledge still remains the foundation. It is just that certain aspects of it become more important at times, or in specific situations (e.g., reliability, performance). This fundamental knowledge helps prepare the student not just to use the “latest tools”, but to understand the underlying challenges, so they can quickly learn the next generation tools, and master new techniques. And, for the practicing engineer, this book provides a welcome foundation to link together segmented knowledge. It will help integrate their experience to provide a deeper, fresh understanding of the end-to-end layout process.I highly recommend this book, not only for its practical and in-depth knowledge, but also for the innovative way it focuses on, and builds upon, fundamentals. With these fundamentals firmly in place, the authors use that foundation to present a comprehensive explanation of the physical-design layout process. Very well done.

The book covers physical design related complex issues, especially ESD related ones which are explained in a very simple way․ Very useful for students and professors in this area. This is just an excellent book.

Don’t be misled, this is not for printed circuit board design. This is for ASIC design or VLSI design.

As a professor who is always in search of the best introduction into a specific topic, I was more than delighted to come across this book: It introduces the complexity of physical design in a hands-on, but nevertheless (almost) complete manner. In addition, this book covers fundamental questions such as how to read a layout view (which other books will not get into), making it very useful even for beginners in this field. I should also mention that the authors provide all figures as a PowerPoint set so that this book can easily be integrated into any IC or PCB design class. Five stars.