In my last post, I said: “A hurricane has made landfall and its name is FinFET”. OK, it’s a little corny, but it was not meant to convey a sense of impending doom for custom layout productivity. No question that hurricanes are disruptive, but humans can adapt to even the worst nature can bring. And FinFETs bring tremendous benefits along with the disruption.FinFETs are without doubt the most radical shift in semiconductor technology in decades, but moving to FinFETs is absolutely necessary. As feature sizes became finer, high leakage current due to short-channel effects threatened to put the brakes on scaling. FinFETs address the leakage issue and give Moore’s Law a new lease of life.Today the bulk of design starts are at the established nodes above 28 nm, so not everyone doing custom layout has experience with FinFETs. For those who have not yet felt the ‘winds of change’ that FinFETs bring, here is a brief primer.

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