Novel circuit technique for high-speed ECL gates

Abstract

We present a novel circuit technique for high-speed emitter-coupled logic (ECL) gates. SPICE simulation indicated the novel ECL circuit technique could boost the operating speed by about 10% above that of a conventional gate without increasing power consumption. In addition, we analyzed the propagation-delay times of conventional and novel ECL gates using SPICE sensitivity analysis, which revealed that our circuit could be operated at high speed because the delay time constants of R L C jC and RbC jC were reduced. In addition, we devised a novel toggle flip-flop (T-FF) circuit using our ECL gates. The simulations demonstrated that the maximum operating frequency of our T-FF was about 10% faster than that of the conventional circuit. Our circuit technique is thus attractive for fabricating ultra-high-speed integrated circuits (ICs) with data rates beyond 50 Gbit/s using Si-based technology.