An overview of BiCMOS technology and applications

Abstract

BiCMOS technology significantly enhances speed performance while incurring a negligible power or area penalty. Thus BiCMOS can provide applications with CMOS power and densities at speeds which were previously the exclusive domain of bipolar, This has been demonstrated in applications ranging from static RAMS to gate arrays to microprocessors.Thus the concept of a "system on a chip" becomes a reality with BiCMOS.The main disadvantage of BiCMOS is greater process complexity, which results in a 1.1-1.3X packaged chip cost. BiCMOS is now being demonstrated at 0.5p.m. This will extend the conventional 15VI TTL and ECL interfaces another generation of technology. The BiCMOS challenge has shifted from process and technology to circuits and systems.