Custom VLSI circuits for high energy physics

This article provides a brief guide to integrated circuits, including their design, fabrication, testing, radiation hardness, and packaging. It was requested by the Panel on Instrumentation, Innovation, and Development of the International Committee for Future Accelerators, as one of a series of articles on instrumentation for future experiments. Their original request emphasized a description of available custom circuits and a set of recommendations for future developments. That has been done, but while traps that stop charge in solid-state devices are well known, those that stop physicists trying to develop the devices are not. Several years spent dodging the former and developing the latter made clear the need for a beginner`s guide through the maze, and that is the main purpose of this text.