Gate Arrays for VLSI Design

Because of the increasing complexity of new integrated circuits (IC\´s) and the limited supply of IC designers, structured design approaches are necessary. A gate array is a common approach to structuring, formalizing, and thus simplifying the design process. Existing gate arrays in various technologies (ECL, CML, ISL, STL, S-TTL, NMOS, CMOS, 1²L, and linear) are described in terms of structure, gate count, and gate delay. A new gate array (the GAB-4000) contains more than 4000 five-collector (1²L) gates. The GAB-4000 was designed for architectural flexibility and ease of layout. An entire microcontroller or microprocessor can be designed on one gate array chip. A new "wafer-scale" linear/digital master slice (the MSA-1000) is also described. The circuit emphasizes diode loads, active loads, and current sources rather than resistors. One can choose any chip size by sawing wherever desired.