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I/O Pads
Some way must be provided to get signals to and from the chip. The usual method is to solder very thin wires directly to the chip. In order to make good electrical contact between the chip circuitry and the bonding wires, a metal bonding pad must be designed into the chip circuitry. The bonding pads are usually about 0.1mm on a side and spaced about 0.1mm between pads. These sizes and spacing are about the same for all processes regardless of line width since it is extremely difficult to make physical solder joints on pads that are any smaller. A cutaway of a typical wire bonded package is shown. bonding wires

chip

package leads bonding wire pad

An alternate method of bonding to the pads is to use solder bumps. First a droplet of solder is put on each pad. Then the chip is flipped over and bonded directly to the circuit board or chip carrier without the use of bonding wires. solder bump

(flip)

chip (side view)

multi-chip carrier

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Fig. 1.63 p. 47 Chip layout with Pad Frame and Power/Ground pads on right side. Note the large power/ground metal lines for the pad drivers. Pad frames can be designed for any size chip and any desired number of pads. A pad frame has been laid out in our 0.6 m pad library which looks like the following. 5000 1500 m

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All the pads are bidirectional Input/Output pads except for the VDD and GND pads in the middle of the right and left side rows. The internal circuitry must fit into the 3000 area inside the frame. This pad frame has 2 power/ground pads and 38 signal pads for a total of 40 pads. All power and ground lines in your design must be connected to the VDD and GND pads.
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Output Pads

Pad Driver (very large) From inside chip To outside world

Pad Capacitance (very large) Drivers: L > Lmin to provide high breakdown voltage, W/L ~ 100 or more to get large drive current.

Folded layout for drivers makes it possible to have very wide transistors without excessive gate poly delays. drain

gate source Note that the gates of these transistors present a large gate load to anything trying to drive them. An intermediate sized inverter buffer is usually provided as part of the pad driver circuitry to drive the pad drivers while presenting a smaller gate load to the internal cir-

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cuitry. Because of the large currents flowing in the pad drivers, they are much more susceptible to latch up than smaller transistors. Guard rings are used around these transistors. Fig. 13.45 p. 592 Input Pads

Input Buffer From outside world To inside chip

Pad Capacitance (very large) The input buffer usually has very low Vinv to accommodate TTL logic levels (0.8V, 2.0V). Note that the input pad and buffer present a capacitive load to the outside world. This is good for preventing any DC load current, but it is bad because large voltages may build up on the input pad from static electricity until the chip circuitry is damaged. Voltages up to 1000V can be put on the input pin merely by touching an unprotected input with your finger. Also, the peak electrostatic discharge (ESD) current can be as much as an amp. ~1K + 1000V ESD Equivalent Circuit for Finger

Input pads must be provided with special circuitry to protect the internal circuitry from these large voltages and currents. Input protection Fig. 13.49 p. 594 The diodes keep the input voltage in the range 0.7V < V in < V dd + 0.7V .
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Unfortunately, the diodes also increase the capacitive load of the input by a factor of about 2. The parasitic p-n junction diode in the diffusion layers can be used to form the diodes. Input Vdd Vdd Vdd n+ n-well Input GND p+ n+ p-substrate GND p+ <=> GND Input p+ n+ <=> Input

Tri-state/Bidirectional Pad Logic for bi-directionality is built into the pad driver. Fig. 13.47 p. 593 The tri-state driver has a clever implementation. Fig. 13.48 p. 593 Typical pad layout (for a 1.6mm process). Fig. 13.51 p. 595 Pad schematic. Fig. 13.52 p. 596 Modern processes operate at low internal voltages compared to the voltage of off-chip signals. Voltage level converters are often built into the pad driver circuitry. Fig. 13.53 p. 597

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