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Application-Specific Integrated Circuits
Amazon.com Reader Reviews
Michael John Sebastian Smith
ISBN 0-201-50022-1 * Hardcover * 1040 pages * 1997
Reviews from Amazon.com
The following customer comments come courtesy of Amazon.com:
ASIC designer from California , May 9, 1999
Very comprehensive and very high quality
This is a huge book and it covers an enormous area, including FPGAs, VHDL, Verilog, logic synthesis, simulation, testing, and layout. It contains an
amazing amount of detail, maybe too much. You can use it like an encyclopedia, but it also makes sense to read. I like the the use of a lot of well
drawn figures. I'm tired of the squashed circles in other textbooks that always makes me wonder
what other problems are in them. The whole VLSI Series (Mead-Conway and Weste-Eshragian) is
very well done. After reading the section on logic synthesis, for the first time it clicked why these
software tools do such a bad job sometimes. I had this book for a few months and just discovered
the Appendices on Verilog and VHDL. The cross-references to the VHDL keywords and
constructs is new, I hadn't seen that before, and a good idea. The VHDL descriptions on
boundary-scan testing were useful too. I don't think the algorithms for layout are much use to an
ASIC designer, but the descriptions of the Cadence SDF and other company file formats are useful,
I can't find these anywhere else. Why is it that the 200-page Kluwer books, which look like they
were writen on a typewriter, cost $130 and this one, with 1000 pages, costs $65?
Reader from Manchester , November 21, 1998
Excellent reference book for all ASIC designers
This book is an ASIC encyclopedia and will be of interest to all engineers, at any level, involved in
chip design. There are 17 sections in total and most of the content is up to date. The book starts
with an introduction to ASICs and then proceeds to cover all aspects of design, including large
sections on FPGA and HDLs, through to layout and routing.
A reader from California, USA , September 4, 1998
An excellent book for people trying to know more about ASIC'
My job requires me to be up to date with the existing as well as emerging technologies related to the
ASIC world. This book does a fine job at that. I strongly recommend this book for those who have
no prior experience with VHDL.
A reader from Aptos, CA , June 20, 1998
Comprehensive look at ASIC and programmable logic technology
Reviewed in EDN Magazine June 4, 1998, page 26:
"With 17 chapters, two appendices and more than 1000 pages, APPLICATION-SPECIFIC
INTEGRATED CIRCUITS by Michael John Sebastion Smith (Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1997,
ISBN 0-201-5022-1) is not a casual weekend read. However, its impressive breadth and depth of
user-configurable logic coverage leaves little doubt that it will satisfy almost any reader's thirst for
knowledge. Smith, a professor at the University of Hawaii (Honolulu), begins with an eight-chapter
review of ASIC and programmable-logic technology and device alternatives, CMOS-logic theory,
and interconnection options. [...]
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