Will VLSI digital circuits exist in GaAs?

Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) technology has demonstrated characteristics which make it highly suitable for high performance high speed systems. However, the high-power dissipation per gate as well as the low thermal conductivity of GaAs prevent the realization of real VLSI systems on this material. Thus a large effort has been spent recently in the development of efficient low-power logic families. This paper discusses the sources of power dissipation in the widely used logic family in GaAs (DCFL), presents the most promising low-power dynamic and static logic families and finally compares these logic families.