ABSTRACT
With the rapid advance in IC manufacturing technology, the IC industry has shown a boom unprecedented in history. From a single transistor in the 1950s to ICs containing millions of transistors in the beginning of 21st century, the improvement in IC complexity and functionality has been exponential. This growing complexity has brought along design problems as well; an ever increasing number of designers are employed by IC providers. However, it has not been enough to simply hire more engineers, but it has been necessary to increase designer productivity. This has been possible only by the prevalent use of ComputerAided Design (CAD) tools.
