Unit 3
Unit 3
Figure (a) Symbol for inverter; (b) truth table of inverter; (c)
CMOS realization of inverter
Two-input NOR gate: (a) symbol; (b) truth table; (c) CMOS realization
VLSI Design (EC-302) 247
Design of Complex Logic Circuit
A two-input depletion-load NOR gate, its logic symbol, and the corresponding truth table.
VLSI Design (EC-302) 250
Calculation of VOH
When both input voltages VA and VB are lower than the corresponding driver threshold voltage, the driver
transistors are turned off and conduct no drain current. Consequently, the load device, which operates in the
linear region, also has zero drain current. In particular, its linear region equation becomes
Eq. 1
Eq. 3
The output low voltage level VOL in both cases is found as follows:
Eq. 4
Note that if the (WIL) ratios of both drivers are identical, i.e., (W/L)A =(WIL)B the output low voltage (VOL) values
calculated for case (i) and case (ii) will be identical.
Eq. 6
Since the gate voltages of both driver transistors are equal (VA =VB =VOH), we can devise an equivalent driver-
to-load ratio for the NOR structure:
Eq. 7
Thus, the NOR gate with both of its inputs tied to a logic-high voltage is replaced with an nMOS depletion-load
inverter circuit with the driver-to-load ratio given by Eq. 7. The output voltage level in this case is
Eq. 8
Generalized n-input NOR gate. Equivalent inverter circuit corresponding to the n-input NOR gate.
VLSI Design (EC-302) 254
the multiple-input NOR gate can also be reduced to an equivalent inverter, shown in Fig., for static analysis. The
(W/L) ratio of the driver transistor here is
The source terminals of all enhancement-type nMOS driver transistors in the NOR gate are connected to ground.
Thus, the drivers do not experience any substrate-bias effect. The depletion-type nMOS load transistor, however,
is subject to substrate-bias effect, since its source is connected to the output node, and its source-to-substrate
voltage is VSB= Vout.
Parasitic device capacitances in the NOR2 gate and the lumped equivalent load capacitance. The gate-to-source
capacitances of the driver transistors are included in the load of the previous stages driving the inputs A and B.
VLSI Design (EC-302) 256
Two-Input NAND Gate
A two-input depletion-load NAND gate, its logic symbol, and the corresponding truth table. Notice the
substrate-bias effect for all nMOS transistors except one.
Now consider another case where VB is equal to VOH and VA switches from
VOH to VOL. In this case, the output voltage Vout, will rise, but the internal
node voltage Vx, will remain low because the bottom driver transistor is on.
Thus, the lumped output capacitance is
A CMOS NOR2 gate and its complementary operation: Either the nMOS network
is on and the pMOS network is off, or the pMOS network is on and the nMOS network is off.
VLSI Design (EC-302) 260
The switching threshold voltage of the NOR2 gate can also be obtained by using the equivalent-inverter
approach. When both inputs are identical, the parallel-connected nMOS transistors can be represented by a
single nMOS transistor with 2kn. Similarly, the series-connected pMOS transistors are represented by a single
pMOS transistor with kP/2. The resulting equivalent CMOS inverter is shown in Fig.
Sample layout of the CMOS NOR2 gate. Sample layout of the CMOS NAND2 gate.
The OR-AND-INVERT (OAI) gate, on the other hand, enables the product-of-sums realization of a
Boolean function in one logic stage. The pull-down net of the OAI gate consists of series branches of
parallel-connected nMOS driver transistors, while the corresponding p-type pull-up network can be
found using the dual-graph concept.
Pass-transistor implementation of an
AND gate
pass-transistor gates cannot be cascaded by connecting the output of a pass gate to the gate input of another pass
transistor
Circuit diagram of (a) CPL NAND2 gate and (b) CPL NOR2 gate.
• It is non-ratioed. The sizing of the PMOS precharge device is not important for realizing proper
functionality of the gate. The size of the precharge device can be made large to improve the low-to-high
transition time (of course, at a cost to the high-to low transition time). There is however, a trade-off with
power dissipation since a larger precharge device directly increases clock-power dissipation.
• It only consumes dynamic power. Ideally, no static current path ever exists between VDD and GND. The
overall power dissipation, however, can be significantly higher compared to a static logic gate.
• The logic gates have faster switching speeds. There are two main reasons for this. The first (obvious)
reason is due to the reduced load capacitance attributed to the lower number of transistors per gate and the
single-transistor load per fan-in. Second, the dynamic gate does not have short circuit current, and all the
current provided by the pull-down devices goes towards discharging the load capacitance.
Static bleeders
compensates for the charge-
leakage
The influence on the output voltage is readily calculated. Under the above assumptions,
the following initial conditions are valid: Vout(t = 0) = VDD and VX(t =0) = 0. Two possible
scenarios must be considered:
1. DVout < VTn — In this case, the final value of VX equals VDD – VTn(VX). Charge
conservation yields
Eq. 1
Eq. 2
Which of the above scenarios is valid is determined by the capacitance ratio. The boundary condition between
the two cases can be determined by setting DVout equal to VTn in Eq. 2, yielding
Overall, it is desirable to keep the value of DVout below |VTp|. The output of the dynamic gate might be connected
to a static inverter, in which case the low level of Vout would cause static power consumption. One major
concern is circuit malfunction if the output voltage is brought below the switching threshold of the gate it drives.
Very high speeds can be achieved: only a rising edge delay exists, while tpHL
equals zero. The inverter can be sized to match the fan-out, which is already much
smaller than in the complimentary static CMOS case, as only a single gate
capacitance has to be accounted for per fan-out gate.
Effect of ripple precharge when the evaluation transistor is removed. The circuit also
exhibits static power dissipation.
Each of the circuit styles has its advantages and disadvantages. Which one to select depends upon the primary
requirement: ease of design, robustness, area, speed, or power dissipation.
The static approach has the advantage of being robust in the presence of noise. This
makes the design process rather trouble-free and amenable to a high degree of automation.
This ease-of-design does not come for free: for complex gates with a large fan-in, complementary CMOS
becomes expensive in terms of area and performance. Alternative static logic styles have therefore been devised.
Pseudo-NMOS is simple and fast at the expense of a reduced noise margin and static power dissipation. Pass-
transistor logic is attractive for the implementation of a number of specific circuits, such as multiplexers and
XOR dominated logic such as adders.
Dynamic logic, on the other hand, makes it possible to implement fast and small complex gates. This comes at a
price. Parasitic effects such as charge sharing make the design process a precarious job. Charge leakage forces a
periodic refresh, which puts a lower bound on the operating frequency of the circuit.
The current trend is towards an increased use of complementary static CMOS. This tendency is inspired by the
increased use of design-automation tools at the logic design level. These tools emphasize optimization at the
logic rather than the circuit level and put a premium on robustness. Another argument is that static CMOS is
more amenable to voltage scaling than some of the other approaches.
with S the slope factor of the device. The subthreshold leakage of an inverter is the current of the NMOS for Vin
= 0V and Vout = VDD (or the PMOS current for Vin = VDD and Vout = 0).
The exponential increase in inverter leakage for decreasing thresholds illustrated in Figure b.
In short-channel MOS transistors, the sub-threshold leakage current depends not only on the gate drive (VGS) and
the body bias (VBS), but also depends on the drain voltage (VDS). The threshold voltage of a short-channel MOS
transistor decreases with increasing VDS due to drain induced barrier lowering (DIBL).
The NAND gate sub-threshold leakage is then set by the top-most NMOS transistor with VGS = VBS = -VX.
Clearly, the sub-threshold leakage under this condition is slightly smaller than that of the inverter. This reduction
in sub-threshold leakage due to stacked transistors is called the stack effect. Figure shows the leakage
components for a simple two input NAND gate.