Introduction to VLSI technology

Silicon based very large scale integration (VLSI) technology has become the driving force of the electronics industry. One chip microcomputers, signal processors or multi megabit randon access memories are products now available. This talk will show why CMOS emerged as the main VLSI technology. The basic CMOS processing scheme, scaling and options to improve its performance will be discussed. The space environment poses a considerable stress onto integrated systems. Therefore the radiadtion hardness of integrated devices and circuits will be adressed. Several measures to cope with a radation environment will be presented.