The design of modern VLSI chips requires the extensive use of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) tools. Undergraduate VLSI Design courses typically teach the use of these tools to create designs, but provide little or no information about how the tools work, which makes it difficult to use them effectively. The goal of the CADAPPLETS project is to provide a set of Java animations which will aid students in visualizing the internal operation of these tools in terms of common problem formulations, classes of algorithms, and specific algorithms. This paper describes one set of animations that illustrates the operation of placement tools, which assign cells to physical locations in a layout. This and other animations are used in class presentations in Lafayette College’s undergraduate VLSI courses and are available at http://foghorn.cadlab.lafayette.edu/cadapplets/.