Very Large-Scale Integration

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What Does Very Large-Scale Integration Mean?

Very large-scale integration (VLSI) is the process of integrating or embedding hundreds of thousands of transistors on a single silicon semiconductor microchip. VLSI technology was conceived in the late 1970s when advanced level computer processor microchips were under development.

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VLSI is a successor to large-scale integration (LSI), medium-scale integration (MSI) and small-scale integration (SSI) technologies.

Techopedia Explains Very Large-Scale Integration

VLSI is one of the most widely used technologies for microchip processors, integrated circuits (IC) and component designing. It was initially designed to support hundreds of thousands of transistor gates on a microchip which, as of 2012, exceeded several billion. All of these transistors are remarkably integrated and embedded within a microchip that has shrunk over time but still has the capacity to hold enormous amounts of transistors.

The first 1 mega byte RAM was built on top of VLSI design principles and included more than one million transistors on its microchip dye.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.