The development of heterojunction integrated injection logic

The development of heterojunction integrated injection logic (HI ²L) since 1982 is described. The baseline process that uses AlGaAs/GaAs emitter-down HBTs (heterojunction bipolar transistors) as the switching element is presented. Two sets of design rules, one using a 7.0-μm collector and 8.0-μm metal pitch and another using a 5.0-μm collector and 5.0-μm metal pitch, have been developed for the pilot line circuit fabrication. Typical propagation delays obtained for a fan-out=4 HI²L gate using the 7.0- and 5.0-μm collector processes are 250 and 150 ps, respectively, at a power dissipation of 5 mW per gate. LSI and VLSI circuits as complex as 4 K-gate arrays and 32-bit MIPS microprocessors have been fabricated successfully using the HI²L technology