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The VLSI Project was a DARPA-program initiated by Robert Kahn in 1978[1] that provided research funding to a wide variety of university-based teams in an effort to improve the state of the art in microprocessor design, then known as Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI).
The VLSI Project is one of the most influential research projects in modern computer history. Its offspring include Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) Unix, the reduced instruction set computer (RISC) processor concept, many computer-aided design (CAD) tools still in use today, 32-bit graphics workstations, fabless manufacturing and design houses, and its own semiconductor fabrication plant (fab), MOSIS, starting in 1981.[2] A similar DARPA project partnering with industry, VHSIC had little or no impact.
The VLSI Project was central in promoting the Mead and Conway revolution throughout industry.
- ^ Funding a Revolution: Government Support for Computing Research. National Academy Press. 1999. doi:10.17226/6323. ISBN 978-0-309-06278-7. Retrieved 17 September 2020.
DARPA's VLSI program built upon these early efforts. Formally initiated by Robert Kahn in 1978, the DARPA program grew out of a study it commissioned at RAND Corporation in 1976 to evaluate the scope of research DARPA might support in VLSI (Sutherland, 1976).
- ^ Pina, C. A. (7 August 2002). "Evolution of the MOSIS VLSI educational program". Proceedings First IEEE International Workshop on Electronic Design, Test and Applications '2002. pp. 187–191. doi:10.1109/DELTA.2002.994612. ISBN 0-7695-1453-7. S2CID 35695273. Retrieved 17 September 2020.
MOSIS was started in 1981 by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Program Agency