Type of contributions

Integration's aim is to cover every aspect of the VLSI area, with an emphasis on cross-fertilization between various fields of science, and the design, verification, test and applications of integrated circuits and systems, as well as closely related topics in process and device technologies. Individual issues will feature peer-reviewed tutorials and articles as well as reviews of recent publications. The intended coverage of the journal can be assessed by examining the following(non-exclusive) list of topics:

Specification methods and languages; Analog/Digital Integrated Circuits and Systems; VLSI architectures; Algorithms, methods and tools for modeling, simulation, synthesis and verification of integrated circuits and systems of any complexity; Embedded systems; High-level synthesis for VLSI systems; Logic synthesis and finite automata; Testing, design-for-test and test generation algorithms; Physical design; Formal verification; Algorithms implemented in VLSI systems; Systems engineering; Heterogeneous systems.

Electronic submissions only

All manuscripts and any supplementary material should be submitted via the journal's online submission and peer-review systems at http://ees.elsevier.com/vlsi. Please follow the instructions given on this site.

IMPORTANT NOTE: In case you submit a special issue paper that will be handled by a designated Special Issue Guest Editor, please follow the instructions below:

1. Author registers in EES (follow the instructions on the site)
2. Select: Submit Manuscript from Main Menu
3. When choosing Article Type please select the title of the special issue you are submitting to

From then on follow the steps as laid out in EES. The manuscript is submitted to the Editorial Office who then assigns it to the Guest Editor in charge of that specific special issue.

Submission of articles
Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the copyright holder. Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to sign a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' (for more information on this and copyright see http://www.elsevier.com/copyright). Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. An e-mail (or letter) will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' form or a link to the online version of this agreement.
Subscribers may reproduce tables of contents or prepare lists of articles including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions. Permission of the Publisher is required for resale or distribution outside the institution and for all other derivative works, including compilations and translations (please consult http://www.elsevier.com/permissions).
If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted forms for use by authors in these cases: please consult http://www.elsevier.com/permissions.

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Preparation of manuscripts

General: We accept most wordprocessing formats, but Word, WordPerfect or LaTeX is preferred. Always keep a backup copy of the electronic file for reference and safety. Save your files using the default extension of the program used.

Word processor documents: It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the wordprocessor used. The text should be in double-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the wordprocessor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. Do not embed "graphically designed" equations or tables, but prepare these using the wordprocessor's facility. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. The electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts (see also the Guide to Publishing with Elsevier: http://www.elsevier.com/authors. Do not import the figures into the text file but, instead, indicate their approximate locations directly in the electronic text and on the manuscript. See also the section on Preparation of electronic illustrations. To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the "spellchecker" function of your wordprocessor.

LaTeX documents: If the LaTeX file is suitable, proofs will be produced without rekeying the text. The article should preferably be written using Elsevier's document class "elsart", or alternatively the standard document class "article". The Elsevier LaTeX package (including detailed instructions for LaTeX preparation) can be obtained from: http://www.elsevier.com/latex. It consists of the files: elsart.cls, guidelines for users of elsart, a template file for quick start, and the instruction booklet "Preparing articles with LaTeX".

Corresponding Author: Ensure that telephone and fax numbers (with country and area code) are provided in addition to the e-mail address and the complete postal address.

Abstract: A concise and factual abstract is required (maximum length 100 words). The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separate from the article, so it must be able to stand alone.

Keyword instructions: Important Notice: please add three to five keywords to your article. Keywords are essential for the accessibility and retrievability of your article. It is planned to make keywords available on Internet. To maximize the consistency with which such keywords are assigned by different authors, the following guidelines have been drawn up.

• Each keyword (which can be a phrase of more than one word) should describe one single concept. Often words like "and" or "of" should be avoided.
• Avoid very general keywords which become meaningless once in a keyword list. Examples to avoid are "action", "computer", "mathematics". Check whether the keywords as a whole describe the outlines of the article.
• Try to use nouns and adjectives as much as possible (i.e. use "automatic error recovery" rather than "recovering errors automatically"). Do not use nouns in the plural form.
• Use English rather than American spelling (regardless of the spelling used for the article itself).
• Avoid the use of abbreviations as much as possible, unless an abbreviation is so well-established that the full term is rarely used (e.g. use "laser" instead of "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation", but use "computer aided design" instead of "CAD").

Although these guidelines are not mandatory, they should be adhered to where possible.

Vitae: Include in the manuscript a short (maximum 100 words) biography of each Author, along with a passport-type photograph accompanying the other figures, upon submission of your manuscript.

Preparation of electronic illustrations

• Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork
• Save text in illustrations as "graphics" or enclose the font.
• Only use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Helvetica, Times, Symbol.
• Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text
• Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files
• Provide all illustrations as separate files
• Provide captions to illustrations separately
• Produce images near to the desired size of the printed version

A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available on our website: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/artworkinstructions.
You are urged to visit this site; some excerpts from the detailed information are given here.

Formats
Regardless of the application used, when your electronic artwork is finalised, please "save as" or convert the images to one of the following formats (Note the resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below.):

EPS: Vector drawings. Embed the font or save the text as "graphics".
TIFF: Colour or greyscale photographs (halftones): always use a minimum of 300 dpi.
TIFF: Bitmapped line drawings: use a minimum of 1000 dpi.
TIFF: Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (colour or greyscale): a minimum of 500 dpi is required.
DOC, XLS or PPT: If your electronic artwork is created in any of these Microsoft Office applications please supply "as is".

Please do not:

• Supply embedded graphics in your wordprocessor (spreadsheet, presentation) document;
• Supply files that are optimised for screen use (like GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution is too low;
• Supply files that are too low in resolution;
• Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.

References: Indicate references by number(s) in square brackets in line with the text. The actual Authors can be referred to, but the reference number(s) must always be given. Example: "..... as demonstrated [3,6]. Barnaby and Jones [8] obtained a different result ...." List: The list of references is arranged alphabetically and then numbered (numbers in square brackets). Examples: Reference to a journal publication:

[1] _{J. van der Geer, J.A.J. Hanraads, R.A. Lupton, The art of writing a scientific article, J. Sci. Commun. 163 (2000) 51-59.}

Reference to a book:

[2] _{W. Strunk Jr., E.B. White, The Elements of Style, third ed., Macmillan, New York, 1979.}

Reference to a chapter in an edited book:

[3] _{G.R. Mettam, L.B. Adams, How to prepare an electronic version of your article, in: B.S. Jones, R.Z. Smith (Eds.), Introduction to the Electronic Age, E-Publishing Inc., New York, 1999, pp. 281-304.}

The use of Digital Object Identifier (DOI): The digital object identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to electronic documents. The DOI consists of a unique alpha-numeric character string which is assigned to a document by the publisher upon the initial electronic publication. The assigned DOI never changes. Therefore, it is an ideal medium for citing a document, particularly 'Articles in press' because they have not yet received their full bibliographic information.
The correct format for citing a DOI is shown as follows:
doi:10.1016/j.future.2003.10.071.
When you use the DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, they are guaranteed never to change.

Other

Please make sure that the paper is submitted in its final form. Corrections in the proof stage other than printer's errors should be avoided: costs arising from such corrections will be charged to the authors. Footnotes should be avoided if possible and be brief.

Elsevier will do everything possible to get your article corrected and published as quickly and accurately as possible. In order to do this we need your help. When you receive the (PDF) proof of your article for correction, it is important to ensure that all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication. Subsequent corrections will not be possible, so please ensure your first sending is complete. Note that this does not mean you have any less time to make your corrections, just that only one set of corrections will be accepted.

Author enquiries

For enquiries relating to the submission of articles (including electronic submission where available) please visit this journal's homepage at http://www.elsevier.com/locate/vlsi. From here you can also track accepted articles ( http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle) and set up e-mail alerts to inform you of when an article's status has changed, as well as detailed artwork guidelines, copyright information, frequently asked questions and more.
Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to proofs, are provided after registration of an article for publication.

Author benefits
The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail or, alternatively, 25 free paper offprints. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use.