Who could imagine today an electronic engineer designing an intergrated circuit using the classical "paper-and-pencil" method? The new technologies permit the fabrication of large systems containng complex building blocks satisfying tight specifications. Having thousands of interconnected transistors on a single chip is commonplace today. The design process reqires a sequence of analyses intermixed with component modifications in order to optimize the final product. Even the most skilled designer cannot avoid using the computer for such complex problems. Many computer programs for simulating electronic circuits are available on the market.
