Exploring Microwind Software For layout Learning

 Hello Dear Reader,

Here in this post, I will give an idea about Microwind is an integrated chip layout and simulation package that was written by professor Estinne Sicard of INSA (Institut National des Sciences Appliquees) in Toulouse, Franch. The Software was written as an aid for learning submicron Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) integrated circuit design, and it has many features that make it unique. Microwind combines various computer tools in a single package that allows the user to layout, check, and simulate a CMOS circuit interactively. It also has a compiler that can create the layout of the logic gate directly from a Boolean expression. When interfaced with its companion program, Dsch, one has an entire automated design environment on a desktop. Logic Schematics can be designed and tested in Dsch and then transferred to Microwind for compilation into a silicon CMOS circuit.

When you will start Microwind .exe application then it's launched the program and give the screen shown in Figure 1. This contains all of the primary menu commands and is the screen that we will always start from.

Figure 1

The simplest approach to learning the Microwind program is to work with it. Some of the main features are illustrated in the following below sections, and you should work through each to get the feel of how the software works.

So let us begin our study by examining a pre-designed circuit file in the Microwind software. So go to File and then Open as shown in Figure 2.  So for this example, we will look at a file named Inv3.MSK. 

Figure 2

After this, it will go to you in the chip layout of the inverter. Each color represents a different layer of electrically conducting material, and the patterns combine to form electronic switches and to show how they are wired together.

A significant amount of chip design deals with creating layout drawings like that shown in Figure 3. A layout plot represents an electronic circuit as it would be built in silicon. The plot is designed on a computer, and the corresponding data files provide the chip manufacturing plant with all of the information needed to actually produce the device. The dimensions of each patterned region are critical to the electronic operation, and changing the size of even a single rectangle may introduce significant consequences. We will spend a lot of time learning how to design layout plots like these. Once you learn the basics, you will be able to read the layout like a schematic diagram and visualize the transistor and wires without much effort.

Figure 3

Chip design is always done from this perspective, but sometimes it helps to see 2 and 3-dimensional views of the structure. Microwind has built-in routines to provide both in the submenu under the Simulate command. So let see the process section in 2D for that go into Simulate and then Process section in 2D as well as process section in 3D as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4

The geometrical patterns that you see in the top view (layout) screen summarize a large part of what is required in chip design. The dimensions of each pattern on the layout are determined and carefully drawn by the designer to ensure that it is possible to actually build the structure within the limits of the fabrication process. The patterns portrayed in the layout represent the components of an electronic network. In chip design, the electrical characteristics of each component are determined by the shape and dimensions of the patterned regions. The overall network response parameters, such as switching time or maximum frequency, thus are related intimately to the layout. so after verification size, shape, and position of the region now time for simulation of electrical characteristics. So go through Simulate and then Run Simulation it will show circuit simulation waveforms as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5

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