Sub-30-ps ECL circuit operation at liquid-nitrogen temperature using self-aligned epitaxial SiGe-base bipolar transistors

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 31...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE electron device letters 1991-04, Vol.12 (4), p.166-168
Main Authors: Cressler, J.D., Comfort, J.H., Crabbe, E.F., Patton, G.L., Lee, W., Sun, J.Y., Stork, J.M.C., Meyerson, B.S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Application software
Applied sciences
Bipolar transistors
Circuits
CMOS technology
Delay
Electronics
Exact sciences and technology
Germanium silicon alloys
Nitrogen
Photonic band gap
Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices
Silicon germanium
Temperature
Transistors
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Summary: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.< >
ISSN:0741-3106
1558-0563
DOI:10.1109/55.75752