MOSFET Structure

G S Poly W D Oxide

n+

Leff Ldrawn

n+

p-substrate

LD

Stick diagram
A stick diagram is a simplified layout form which does contain the information related to each of the process steps, but does not contain the actual size of the individual features. Instead the features are represented by simple lines hence the name stick diagram. The stick diagram can easily be drawn by hand and is a handy intermediate form between the circuit diagram and the physical layout since it can easily be modified and corrected. It can therefore be used to anticipate and avoid possible problems when laying out the circuit. Before the cell can be constructed from a transistor schematic it is necessary to develop a strategy for the cell's basic layout. Stick Diagrams are a means for the design engineer to visualize the cell routing and transistor placement. The initial phase of layout design can be simplified significantly by the use of stick diagrams - or so-called symbolic layouts. Here, the detailed layout design rules are simply neglected and the main features (active areas, polysilicon lines, metal lines) are represented by constant width rectangles or simple sticks. The purpose of the stick diagram is to provide the designer a good understanding of the topological constraints, and to quickly test several possibilities for the optimum layout without actually drawing a complete mask diagram. In the following, we will examine a series of stick diagrams which show different layout options for the CMOS inverter circuit.

Metal Interconnect Layers

Ox3 Via Metal2 Active contact Ox2

Metal1
Ox1 n+ n+ n+ n+

p-substrate

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Stick Diagrams Metal poly ndiff pdiff

Can also draw in shades of gray/line style. Buried Contact Poly to diffusion contact

Contact Cut

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Stick Diagrams
nMOS

pMOS

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Stick Diagram - Example I 5V

5v

Dep

Vout
Vin

Enh

0V

0V

Stick Diagram - Example II

F = A + BC
Power

VDD

F
Out

B
A

B C

VSS
Ground

S.N.P

Stick Diagram - Example III

A
OUT

NOR Gate

Exercise: Draw the Stick Diagram of 2-input NAND gate

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Stick Diagram - Example IV

Power

Out

C B
Ground

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For the transmission gate multiplexer

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