Can someone please clarify me what the rightmost strip of this layout is?
I know the red ones are poly, the squares are contacts, in green the n-well, in brown the p-diffusion and in blue with diagonal lines is metal 1. But what is that rightmost long strip connected to the output of the cell (output of the last inverter). Is it metal too? Why is the texture different?
The rightmost strip is likely a higher metal layer than the metal strip you see in blue with diagonal lines. In this case, it is likely metal 2 (M2). By going up M2, they are able to cross over the M1 horizontal strip at the top without forming a connection. Another reason we can assume this is likely metal 2 is that it is a vertical strip. The convention for many PDKs is to use even metal layers for vertical routing and odd layers for horizontal routing.
Image Source: https://my.eng.utah.edu/~cs6710/handouts/floorplanning_3LM.pdf
