Standard cell

Standard cell is in microelectronic design for a fixed implementation of a logic gate which has been designed for use in complex digital circuits.

In standard cell layout of the single gate stands before beginning design already fixed. The design with standard cells reduces the risk of malfunction, there can be reduced drastically for a designed circuit so that the verification effort. On the contrary, can also be minimized in manual layout of larger digital circuits, the total area.

Standard cells are specifically designed for a manufacturing process and measured before the start of mass production with suitable test structures and characterized. Thus, the complete circuit characteristics are recognized over the planned operating range (voltage, temperature) and converted into corresponding simulation models.

The complexity of standard cells ranging from the simplest cell ( inverters of two transistors ) typically to the flip-flop ( up to about 25 transistors).