A BICMOS CIRCUIT USING A BASE-BOOST TECHNIQUE FOR LOW-VOLTAGE, LOW-POWER APPLICATION

BiCMOS circuits using a base-boost technique for low-voltage applicati on have been proposed. These circuits can operate at supply voltages d own to 1.5 V. Their power dissipation, however, is 1.5-2 times of that of the CMOS circuit. We propose a novel BICMOS circuit dissipating Le ss power than that of conventional circuits. A base-boost technique is a key to low-voltage operation, and a gate holding the output voltage and a depletion nMOS pre-charge transistor are also introduced to red uce the power dissipation. Results of simulations using 0.3-mu m BICMO S device parameters show that base-boosted BiN:MOS (BB-BiNMOS) circuit is 1.5 times faster than CMOS circuit even at 1 V and that its power dissipation is almost the same power as that of a CMOS circuit, the ba se-boosted BiCMOS (BB-BICMOS) circuit is twice as fast and dissipates only 1.2 times as much power. The energy-delay product of the BB-BiCMO S circuit is smaller than that of conventional BiCMOS circuits and is about half of that of a CMOS circuit, the BB-BiCMOS circuit is thus th e most promising high-speed circuits For low-voltage and low-power app lications.