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Mead-Conway VLSI Textbook

Mead-Conway VLSI Textbook

Image creditAddison-Wesley, 1980 (cover image via the Lynn Conway VLSI Archive)
unknown ↗

Mead-Conway VLSI Textbook

Year
1979
Creator
Carver Mead, Lynn Conway
Company
Xerox PARC and Caltech; published by Addison-Wesley
Location
Palo Alto, California

Description

Introduction to VLSI Systems is a textbook by Carver Mead of Caltech and Lynn Conway of Xerox PARC. It taught a simple method to design very large chips, and the image shows its cover.

Importance

In the fall of 1979, Conway's group at PARC collected 82 designs from 12 universities over the ARPANET and made them into chips. Jim Clark made a prototype of his Geometry Engine in this project and later started Silicon Graphics. DARPA made the service permanent as MOSIS in 1981.

Interesting fact

Introduction to VLSI Systems sold approximately 70,000 copies, and within two years 120 universities taught courses that used its method.

Sources

  1. Reminiscences of the VLSI Revolution (Lynn Conway, IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine) ↗Lynn Conway / University of Michigan · 2012
  2. The VLSI Archive: documents and artifacts from the Mead-Conway VLSI design revolution ↗Lynn Conway · 2012-12-28
  3. Lynn Conway, 2014 Computer History Museum Fellow ↗Computer History Museum