31 Oct
2015
31 Oct
'15
10:08 a.m.
On 2015-Oct-30, at 7:25 PM, william degnan wrote:
> So chances are that various government programs helped at the margins,
> but were not drivers.
(Think I got that attribution right...)
Well, one BIG thing that moved LSI forward was the VHSIC
project and others at DARPA. They funded a lot of work on
computer programs to synthesize digital logic (VHDL),
analyze chip performance (SPICE) and also MOSIS, which
allowed people to experiment with designs and share the cost
of masks and wafer fab. SPICE has been there from the very
beginning, VHDL and MOSIS came later, after digital ICs were
already in production, but certainly were a huge help as
chips became more complicated.
There are probably other projects in this vein.
Jon