How do we lay out a capacitor?

One way of making capacitors is to use the two polysilicon layers in our process. We create a parallel plate capacitor with poly1 and poly2 (electrode) forming the two parallel sides. The silicon dioxide between the two poly layers is thin enough to yield good capacitance values per unit area. This is called a poly-poly capacitor. The other way would be to use the gate oxide and actually build a transistor whose gate area (W x L) would actually give us the capacitance. These are called MOS capacitors, and they only work properly when the transistor is strongly inverted or depleted. Otherwise, the capacitance can vary with the voltage across it. In this help file, the method to build a poly-poly2 capacitor is described. Before we start with the design and the dimensions of the capacitor, we need to know the capacitance per unit area between the two poly layers. For the process we are using, this value is about 800 aF/m2. (1 attoFarad is 10-18 F). Note: Since poly2 is often used to build capacitors, it is called electrode (analogous to the plate in parallel plate capacitor). Henceforth, I will refer poly2 as electrode and poly would mean poly1. In this example, we will build a 180fF capacitor. 1) Calculate the area of the capacitor (i.e. the area of overlap of poly and electrode) Area = 180fF/ 800aF = 225 square microns. If we build the capacitor as a perfect square, the length and the width would be 15 microns each.

2) Make a square of elec (greenish yellow layer) of 15 by 15 microns.

3) Build a square of poly (red layer) around this such that poly extends elec on all sides by 1.5 um.

4) Our two parallel plates of the capacitor are ready. We need metal connections to connect them in any circuit (similar to the leads of a parallel plate capacitor). So, places contacts cc on the poly and electrode and connect them to metal as shown. Make sure you obey the contact overlap rules. You can place as many contacts as you want. I have shown only one contact each for poly and electrode. High-frequency circuits require more contacts distributed along each layer since the series resistance in the polysilicon layers can limit a circuits bandwidth.

5) Thats it. Our poly-poly capacitor is ready. You might want to do a DRC check and then extract this layout. When you extract it and open up the extracted view in the library manager, you will get a layout that looks similar to this one below:

6) Notice that there is a cap component in a box in the extract. This represents the poly-poly capacitor we built. To know the value of the capacitor, click on the cap box and press q (properties). A window will prop up as shown below. Check on Parameter and you would see the capacitance value. Note that it may not be the exact value what we designed for.