Very large-scale integration (VLSI) refers to the design and manufacturing of integrated circuits that pack massive numbers of MOS transistors onto a single silicon die. This density allows entire systems, such as microprocessors and memory arrays, to exist on one piece of silicon. The term emerged to distinguish chips with high transistor counts from earlier, simpler logic families.
The new curriculum requires all electrical engineering students to take a course in VLSI design before graduation.
The term is largely historic, as current semiconductor processes pack billions of transistors, far exceeding the original threshold for this category.
Related terms
Very large scale integration
The process of creating complex integrated circuits by combining hundreds of thousands of transistors on a single chip.
ULSI
Ultra-large-scale integration is the fabrication of more than one million transistors on a single semiconductor chip.
LSI
This historic chip classification refers to integrated circuits containing tens of thousands of transistors.
Chip
A small piece of semiconducting material containing a complex integrated circuit.