CoE 197U The MOS Switch

Levels of Abstraction

As integrated circuits continue to increase in complexity and sophistication, the amount of information and information processing needed to design, fabricate, and test these ICs also increase. Without a way to organize this information, engineers can be easily overwhelmed. One strategy is to define levels of abstraction, where we partition the information, and use only the components needed for a particular task. This strategy can then be used to create models appropriate for a certain objective.

We create models to allow us to predict the behavior of a circuit or system.

Figure 1: Levels of abstraction.

What is a Transistor?

Figure 2: The 45nm NMOS PTM output characteristics.

The Ideal Switch

Figure 4: The ideal switch V-I characteristics.