Title :
Sub-30-ps ECL circuit operation at liquid-nitrogen temperature using self-aligned epitaxial SiGe-base bipolar transistors
Author :
Cressler, John D. ; Comfort, James H. ; Crabbe ; Patton, Gary L. ; Lee, Wai ; Sun, Jack Y C ; Stork, Johannes M C ; Meyerson, Bernard S.
Author_Institution :
IBM Thomas J. Watson Res. Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, USA
fDate :
4/1/1991 12:00:00 AM
Abstract :
The authors report the operation of emitter coupled logic (ECL) circuits at liquid-nitrogen temperature using self-aligned epitaxial SiGe-base bipolar transistors. A minimum ECL gate delay of 28.1 ps at 84 K was measured; this is essentially unchanged from the room-temperature value of 28.8 ps at 310 K. This delay number was achieved under full logic-swing (500-mV) conditions and represents an improvement of greater than a factor of 2 over the best reported value for 84 K operation. Lower-power ECL circuits have switching speeds as fast as 51 ps at 2.2 mW (112-fJ power-delay product) at 84 K. These results suggest that silicon-based bipolar technology is suitable for very-high-speed applications in cryogenic computer systems.<>
Keywords :
Ge-Si alloys; bipolar integrated circuits; bipolar transistors; elemental semiconductors; emitter-coupled logic; integrated logic circuits; semiconductor materials; silicon; 28.1 to 28.8 ps; 84 to 310 K; Si-SiGe; circuit operation; cryogenic computer systems; emitter coupled logic; full logic-swing; gate delay; liquid-nitrogen temperature; power-delay product; self-aligned epitaxial bipolar transistors; switching speeds; Application software; Bipolar transistors; CMOS technology; Circuits; Delay; Germanium silicon alloys; Nitrogen; Photonic band gap; Silicon germanium; Temperature;
Journal_Title :
Electron Device Letters, IEEE
