{{Short description|Measure of circuit complexity}} {{Refimprove|date=March 2009}} A '''gate equivalent''' ('''GE''') stands for a unit of measure which allows specifying ''manufacturing-technology-independent complexity'' of digital electronic circuits. For today's CMOS technologies, the silicon area of a two-input drive-strength-one NAND gate usually constitutes the ''technology-dependent'' unit area commonly referred to as gate equivalent. A specification in gate equivalents for a certain circuit reflects a complexity measure, from which a corresponding silicon area can be deduced for a dedicated manufacturing technology.
In digital circuit design, a dedicated ''standard cell library'' is employed for each manufacturing technology (e.g., CMOS). The standard cell library comprises many different logic gates, for example a NAND gate. For each logical type of logic gate, e.g., a two-input NAND, there usually exist different physical realizations in the standard cell library, for instance with different output drive strengths.
Basically, a two-input drive-strength-one NAND gate in CMOS technology consists of four transistors.
== See also == * Logic family * NMOS logic * MOSFET * Fanout * FO4 * Boolean logic
== References == * ''[http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521882672 Digital Integrated Circuit Design: From VLSI Architectures to CMOS Fabrication]'', Hubert Kaeslin, Cambridge University Press, 2008
{{Digital systems}}
Category:Logic gates Category:Equivalent units