This tutorial was originally written by David Harris at Harvey Mudd College as the first in a set of lab instructions for an undergraduate-level CMOS VLSI design class. It provides very basic instructions to acclimatize first-time users with Electric. As such, it is not a full introduction to using Electric, nor does it cover many commonly used commands.

What this tutorial does cover is:

- Basic schematic editing. You will create a simple "nand" gate.
- Layout drawing. You will create the IC layout of the "nand" gate.
- Hierarchy. You will assemble the "nand" with an "inverter" to build an "and" gate.
- Analysis. You will run the design rule checker on the layout, and will compare the layout with the schematic.

To begin, load the "mipscells" library with the MIPS Cells command (in menu Help / Load Built-in Libraries). This library contains many parts of the MIPS processor that are provided to you. You will add your new design to the library as you work through the tutorial.