Fifty Applications of the CMOS Inverter—Part 1 [The Analog Mind]

The CMOS inverter dates back to a patent filed by Wanlass in 1963
[1]
. Shown in
Figure 1
is the disclosed structure. (Unlike today’s convention, Wanlass denotes the drains by arrows.) With the scaling of the supply voltage in nanometer technologies, the CMOS inverter has found much wider application, and many of its properties have come into focus. In this multipart article, we study 50 examples of circuits using inverters in critical roles. Moreover, we use simulations to quantify the performance of these topologies. Simulations are performed in the slow–slow corner of 28-nm technology at
T
= 75° C, with
V
_DD
= 0.95 V. An estimate of the layout parasitic capacitances is also included. Unless otherwise stated,
L
= 30 nm for all transistors.