Investigation on low-voltage low-power silicon bipolar design topology for high-speed digital circuits

This paper investigates a bipolar design topology which is suitable to operate from a voltage supply well below 1.5 V, while maintaining the ability of high frequency operation. The topology has been applied in the design of different divide-by-4 circuits, utilizing a 20-GHz 0.6-mu m Si bipolar technology. The different versions featured slight modifications in the architecture of the logic cells and the influence on the frequency and supply voltage range of operation has been investigated. Measurements have shown operation from 1.0-V supply voltage and up to 4.2-GHz input frequency to 1.5 V and up to 6 GHz. The power consumption is approximately 0.3 mW/latch and 1.2 mW/latch, respectively.