Low-Voltage VLSI BiCMOS Circuit Design

Abstract

BiCMOS technology offers enhanced performance compared to CMOS at 5 V power supply voltage. Many high-speed BiCMOS SRAMs, gate arrays, ASICs, etc. have been fabricated [1]. In this chapter, we present a variety of BiCMOS logic circuits suitable for 3.3 and sub-3.3 V. The potential gates for digital applications are identified. The chapter starts with the introduction of the conventional BiCMOS (totem-pole) gate which is used in 5 V applications. The degradation of this gate, with supply voltage scaling, is demonstrated. In Section 5.2, we introduce the BiNMOS family suitable for low-voltage applications. Other logic families, for low power supply voltage operation, are discussed in Section 5.3. Low-voltage digital applications of BiCMOS are identified. The reader is referred to BiCMOS books [2, 3] to get more familiar with BiCMOS circuits.