Chapter 9 - GaAs VLSI Technology for High-Speed Computers

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter highlights GaAs very-large-scale integration (VLSI) technology for high-speed computers. High-electron-mobility transistors are very promising devices for VLSI, especially those operating at liquid nitrogen temperature, because of their ultrahigh speed and low power dissipation. The projected HEMT performance target suitable for VLSI is a fundamental switching delay below 10 psec with a power dissipation of about 100 μW/stage under 1-μm design rule technology. By evaluating the gate length dependence of the threshold voltage and K-factor of short channel high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs), it was confirmed to be no problem for short channel effects in the microstructure of submicrometer dimension. Master-slave flip-flop divide-by-two circuits achieved internal logic delays of 22 psec/gate at 77 K and 36 psec/gate at 300 K at an average fanout of about 2. The HEMT technology is confirmed to have desirable features for high-performance VLSI devices. A HEMT 1 kbit static RAM has been developed and has achieved an address access time of 0.87 nsec to demonstrate the feasibility of the high-performance VLSI.