The problem of silicon assembly contains several well-separated steps that can be identified. To solve the assembly problem, use can be made of the stepwise approach to assembly, which involves finding ways of performing the individual steps and then linking the steps together to realise a silicon assembler. However, experience has shown that this approach produces poor-quality results, not because of the failure of the individual steps, but rather because of the breakdown in communication between the steps. Silicon assembly is a programming problem whose results are significantly affected by how the problem is decomposed into sub-problems. Building on the experience gained from implementing a stepwise assembler a novel integrated approach to solving the assembly problem is presented, which overcomes the communication problems inherent in the stepwise approach. Experimental results obtained using an integrated assembler are comparable to or better than those produced by existing assemblers. The integrated approach is simple in concept and easy to implement, yet produces good results, and is a suitable platform for taking silicon assembly forward in the 1990's.