I focus on 1970s and 1980s chips, which are simple enough to understand. For that generation, Mead and Conway's Introduction to VLSI Systems is a good place to

I focus on 1970s and 1980s chips, which are simple enough to understand. For that generation, Mead and Conway's Introduction to VLSI Systems is a good place to start. https://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/VLSIText/PP-V2/V2.pdf https://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/VLSIText/PP-V2/... Old books on chip design are also useful, and can usually be obtained for cheap. Also see The Layman's Guide to IC Reverse Engineering: http://siliconzoo.org/tutorial.html http://siliconzoo.org/tutorial.html