POSSIBILITIES OF DEEP-SUBMICROMETER CMOS FOR VERY-HIGH-SPEED COMPUTER LOGIC

It is shown that room-temperature CMOS, which has rarely been considered suitable for very-high-speed computer logic, can have sufficient performance to be the long-pursued post-ECL high-speed device when deep-submicrometer technology is available. The possibilities ofCMOS are evaluated considering the very many factors related to computer logic. In a case study, it is shown that system performance comparable to the most modern large-scale computers is obtainable with room-temperature operation, assuming CMOS devices of which gate-length is 0.2-0.25 mum. Further possibilities of performance improvement and advantage of CMOS are discussed in detail compared with other technologies.