The effort required for the design of an integrated circuit depends on the complexity of the circuit. The requirement may range from several days effort for a single designer to several months work for a team of designers.
Custom design of complex integrated circuits is the most demanding. By contrast, semicustom design of LSI and VLSI that utilize preexisting designs, such as standard cells and gate arrays, requires less design effort.
IC design is performed at many different levels and Fig. 8.9 is a non unique depiction of these levels.
Level 1 presents the design in terms of subsystems (standard cells, gate arrays, custom subcircuits, etc.) and their interconnections. Design of the system layout begins with the floor plan of level 3.
It does not involve the layout of individual transistors and devices, but is concerned with the geometric arrangement and interconnection of the subsystems.
Level 4 involves the circuit design of the subsystems.
Levels 2 and 5 involve system and sub circuit simulations, respectively, which may lead to modifications in levels 1 and/or 4.
Discussion here will focus primarily on the system design of level 1 and the subsystem circuit design of level 4. Lumped under the fabrication process of level 7 are many tasks, such as mask generation, process simulation, wafer fabrication, testing, etc.
Broadly speaking, floor plan generation is a part of layout. For large ICs, layout design is often relevant to system and circuit design.
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