The potential of complementary heterostructure FET IC's

Abstract

The performance capability of AlGaAs/GaAs complementary heterostructure FET (C-HFET) integrated circuits has been evaluated in computer simulations. The study is focused on C-HFET designs in which static currents and gate-leakage currents are sufficiently low to take full advantage of the speed, power dissipation, and logic function capabilities of CMOS-like circuitry. ASTAP computer simulations for loaded NAND and NOR circuits are examined over a wide supply-voltage range at both 300 and 77 K in order to determine the potential of various MODFET, MISFET, and SISFET approaches as well as the prospects of future designs. While performance is limited by FET threshold and gate leakage in present C-HFET approaches, the speed of properly designed 0.7-µm C-HFETs at 300 K is projected to be 3 × faster than comparable 300 K Si-CMOS circuits. C-HFET circuits at 77 K are projected to be more than 4 × faster than 77 K Si-CMOS circuits. It is also found that properly designed C-HFET's could operate at speeds close to those of DCFL n-channel HFET circuits while dissipating only 1/10 of the power.