As a designer, every choice and decision you make within your circuit directly impacts the final piece of silicon that gets built. Circuit design goes beyond the simulator. The physical attributes of your designs can determine whether the circuit thrives or fails. Mask design issues are now, more than ever, part of the circuit design process. Your design is not complete until the circuit is in silicon.

The responsibility of getting your design onto silicon is yours. The responsibility of understanding how your design impacts layout options is yours. The responsibility of communicating circuit requirements to a mask designer is yours. To do all this you must know your mask designers' job as well as they do, if not better.

How can you effectively achieve this difficult part of your job?

First, you need to completely understand your circuit, both electrically and physically. Understanding what your circuit needs to achieve electrically will enable you to make informed decisions about what device sizes to use and what layout techniques to employ. Every time you place a device or an interconnect in your schematic you should be thinking, "What will this look like physically?" You should live, breathe, and think mask design. Every waking thought should be how your circuit will be physically implemented.

Second, you need to understand your manufacturing process intimately how every component in the process is built and used. If you understand your process, you can make intelligent choices that are based upon documented behaviors instead of...