With an ever more rapid development of electronic systems, it is vital that

today’s engineering groups have access to opTImal design soluTIons. Since the

advent of integrated circuits, manufacturers of electronic systems have used

each new generaTIon of ICs to improve products by adding features, reducing

size, improving performance and steadily reducing product costs. To be

compeTItive in today’s marketplace, electronic-based products must remain

state-of-the-art. As the scale of semiconductor integration increases and

electronic systems become more complex, state-of-the-art often means use of

custom LSI circuits.

In this situation, standard, “off-the-shelf” components are often impractical;

they offer the quickest, but costly solutions. Compared to standard, off-theshelf

ICs, fully-customized components would give the lowest unit cost as well

as represent minimum chip solutions tailored to specific application needs.

However, they take a long time — usually one to three years — of tedious

development cycles.

Application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) are devices where the circuit

is dedicated to designer’s specific requirements, and the functionality of the

circuit is totally controlled by the designer. Compared to merchant IC

implementations, ASICs offer lower system cost due to significant reductions

in component count, board area, and power consumption. Product reliability

and equipment maintainability — strong functions of component count — are

greatly improved. Compared to full-custom LSI circuits, ASICs offer several

advantages: lower development cost, shorter development time, and shorter

production lead time. Low development cost means that the LSI

implementation of your logic design is cost-justified at much lower volume

than a full-custom circuit.

Toshiba prides itself on providing its customers with unique and complete

ASIC products and services. Three main techniques of our ASIC products,

gate arrays, cell-based ICs, and embedded arrays, form the background to

procedures described in this manual.