Several inventions are disclosed. A
cell architecture using hexagonal shaped cells is disclosed. The architecture is not limited to hexagonal shaped cells. Cells may be defined by clusters of two or more hexagons, by triangles, by parallelograms, and by other polygons enabling a variety of
cell shapes to be accommodated. Polydirectional non-orthogonal three layer
metal routing is disclosed. The architecture may be combined with the tri-directional routing for a particularly advantageous design. In the tri-directional routing arraingement, electrical conductors for interconnecting terminals of microelectronic cells of an
integrated circuit preferrably extend in three directions that are angularly displaced from each other by 60 DEG . The conductors that extend in the three directions are preferrably formed in three different
layers. A method of minimizing wire length in a
semiconductor device is disclosed. A method of minimizing intermetal
capacitance in a
semiconductor device is disclosed. A novel device called a "tri-ister" is disclosed. Triangular devices are disclosed, including triangular NAND gates, triangular AND gates, and triangular OR gates. A triangular op amp and
triode are disclosed. A triangular
sense amplifier is disclosed. A
DRAM memory array and an SRAM
memory array, based upon triangular or
parallelogram shaped cells, are disclosed, including a method of interconnecting such arrays. A programmable variable drive
transistor is disclosed. CAD algorithms and methods are disclosed for designing and making
semiconductor devices, which are particularly applicable to the disclosed architecture and tri-directional three
metal layer routing.