In this paper, we introduce analytical expressions of the supply and short circuit current that flow in inverters during their switching process. Application is then given to the definition of output transition time, propagation delay and short circuit power dissipation formulae. This global inverter representation is dedicated to submicron technologies, and therefore takes into account velocity saturation, load and input ramp effects and also input to output coupling phenomena. Validations are given, on a 0.18 µm process, by comparing simulated (Hspice, MOST9) and calculated values of the supply current, the output transition time and the delay.