Department of Electrical Engineering

EGEE-465 Fall 2020

Introduction to VLSI Design (Fall 2020)

Inverter Design

Student Name: Jeffry Salazar

Student CWID: 891884140

Instructor: Yitsen Ku Ph.D.

October 02, 2020

I. Introduction
Tanner Software is used to create a schematic using S-Edit. Then T-Spice creates spice code to
run the simulation for the schematic. The simulation is used to view specific signal
characteristics, in this case input and output of the inverter. Once satisfied with the simulation
of the proposed design, then you modify the spice code to remove simulation details to transfer
the net list in into L-Edit to create the layout for the PCB design.

The main function of an INVERTER is to invert an input signal. It also allows to create a NAND
and NOR gate by making the output of an AND and OR gate, respectively, the input of the
inverter.

Inverter Truth Table:

INPUT OUTPUT
0 1
1 0

II. Circuit Description

A. Schematic
The schematic in Figure 1, has a generic 250nm PMOS above and NMOS below to create
the inverter. There is a constant voltage Vdd =2.5V at the Source of the PMOS. The PMOS
and NMOS are connected at their Drains, which is the Output. The Input is connected to
both Gates.

Figure 1: Inverter Schematic

B. Symbol
The inverter symbol is a block representation of the devices shown in Figure 1. It is only for
drawing purposes to simply the overall schematic. Bundling multiple devices like the two
MOSFETs into a block may not seem significant, but with more complex projects, it
becomes significant.

Figure 2: Inverter symbol schematic prepared for simulation.

C. Spice code
The Spice code is used as the testbench for simulation as shown on the code.
Simulation-General Section
Calls the model library for the generic 250nm PMOS and NMOS used in the design. The
Subcircuits
Holds the details of the PMOS and NMOS model, including technical specifications and
dimensions of the devices.
Top Level
The first line is Inverter symbol dimensions. The second line is the details of the Vdd as
2.5V DC. The third line is the Pulse Voltage set from 0-2.5V with signal specifications. The
last two lines hold the plot settings for the simulation.
Simulation Settings-Analysis Settings
Holds the transient simulation settings of a simulation lasting a period of 600ns and
plotting a point every 4ns

Figure 3: Spice code used in T-Edit for simulation and L-Edit for inserting netlist to layout.
D. Layout
Auto Routing Layout
The layout resulting from auto routing is shown below in figure 4. The auto routing
function is great for simple designs. The design is properly drawn with no design rule
errors, but the one flaw is that it is not the most efficient use of space. The PMOS and
NMOS are far apart relative to the manual routing layout seen in Figure 6.

Figure 4: Auto routing layout of inverter in L-Edit.

The SDL Navigator shows that the layout includes Ground, In, Out, and Vdd nets. On the
Command Line it shows that the four nets exist, mentioned above, and were successfully
included.

Figure 5: Auto routing SDL Navigator and Command Line windows in L-Edit.
Manual Routing Layout
The manual routing layout is shown below in figure 6. Measurements are shown with width at
0.450, which is the minimum width and equal to 2*lambda. Here the layout uses space more
efficiently, they are set closer together. The rules are satisfied for overlap, extension, spacing,
and surround.

Figure 6: Manual routing of inverter in L-Edit with width measurements.

III. Simulation Results
The simulation results show two graphs. The top graph is the input voltage and the bottom
graph is the output voltage. When the input is high(2.5V) the output is low(0V) and when the
input is low(0V) the output is high(2.5V). This shows that inverter was designed properly. There
is a small ramp between transitions, since it simulates generic non ideal MOSFETs.

Figure 7: Simulation results for input and output of inverter.

IV. Conclusion
Tanner software has a simple efficient workflow to create a schematic of the design in S-Edit.
Then use T-Spice for spice code to run simulations and import net list to the layout software L-
Edit. Symbols are great to group complex schematics into a simple block. This allows to make
more complex design simpler. Manual routing allows for an efficient layout since the designer
has full control of how to route the layout. The inverter is a useful device that will be grouped
with more complex circuits and devices, as a block. This project also allowed me to get familiar
with the software. Since the technical difficulties I had, made me do troubleshooting which
made me further understand the software, then just following instructions.