In this paper, we discuss the advantages and opportunities presented by high-speed (> 50 GHz) reconfigurable integrated circuits and how they may drive reconfigurable systems applications, such as software-defined radio, radar, and imaging. We propose silicon-germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS as an example technology that enables ultrafast reconfigurable systems and present several circuit designs based on SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs). We compare circuit designs between generations of IBM's SiGe process, including a recent 9HP process featuring devices with a cutoff frequency (fT) of 300 GHz. We describe an architecture for an 8-b 80-Gs/s analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and a 48 × 48 cell field programmable gate array (FPGA), which provide powerful solutions for useful functions, such as digital signal processing (DSP) and polyphase filtering. Other circuit concepts are described, including a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) with a tuning range of 26 GHz and a high-performance (80 Gb/s) crossbar switch, which provide utility in reconfigurable system applications. Measured results from fabricated implementations of these described systems are presented. We comment on future prospects of these systems and examine an emerging lateral bipolar device (fT1/4 825 GHz) having 100x less power consumption than conventional vertical HBTs.

A 7-12-Gb/s demultiplexer implemented with circuits for a high-speed field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is introduced in this paper. Since the first FPGA was released by Xilinx in 1985, FPGAs have become denser and more powerful. The first FPGA that operates in the microwave range was designed in 2000. Various methods, such as a new basic cell structure and multimode routing, are used to make that design faster and less power consuming. Sequential logic functions are analyzed and tested in this paper with a DEMUX implementation using these high-speed FPGA circuits. A chip measurement has shown that the FPGA can operate at a 12-GHz system clock when configured to perform sequential logic. A DEMUX that operates at 12 Gb/s is used here to demonstrate the potential for high-performance and low-power FPGA features.

FPGAs have been a popular topic among electrical engineers for over a decade. Modern FPGAs are denser, faster and use less power compared to PLD and CPLD. This paper presents a high speed FPGA that operates in the gigahertz range. An improved reconfigurable circuit is described. State-of-the-art IBM SiGe BiCMOS technology is used to realize this high speed FPGA. A measurement on a fabricated chip proves that this FPGA is capable of operating at 11 GHz, a SONET OC-192 standard, for optical applications.

This paper describes the implementation of a large scale SiGe FPGA that serves as a high speed FPGA test platform. In the FPGA core, 20 x 20 building blocks (Basic Cells) are used to implement logic applications. This chip contains 106 devices including SiGe NPNs and MOSFETs. This chip is fabricating with the IBM SiGe 7HP process with cut off frequency of 120GHz. The target running frequency of this FPGA is 10GHz. Clock repeaters are added for improved clock distribution. A test circuit whose building block cell runs up to 10GHz is fabricated and measured by the same process. Future work and some potential applications of the SiGe FPGA are also described.

This paper presents a new power saving, high speed FPGA design enhancing a previous SiGe CML FPGA based on the Xilinx 6200 FPGA. The design aims at having a higher performance but minimizing power consumption. The new SiGe process has traded off the circuit's performance for reduced power consumption. The power supply voltage has been reduced from 3.4 V to 2.0 V. The structure of the Basic Cell, including the Configurable Logic Block (CLB) and routing multiplexers (MUXs), has been modified so that the supply voltage reduction can be attained. Simulations have shown that the gate delay of the new Basic Cell is reduced from 130 ps in the prior design to 51 ps. The total power consumption for each Basic Cell has been reduced 94% from 71 mW to 4.2 mW, making a large scale FPGA feasible. This design is currently under fabrication for testing.

The low operating speed of current CMOS Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), i.e., 10-220 MHz, has prevented their use in high-speed digital applications. With the advent of IBM Silicon Germanium (SiGe) 7HP technology, designers have been able to design FPGAs operating in the gigahertz range. This paper is going to elaborate on the implementation of a 4-bit ripple-carry full adder (FA) on the new SiGe FPGA with new architectures and a novel power management strategy. The 1-bit FA can be realized in three Configurable Logic Blocks (CLBs). Apart from these, the FA can operate in multiple modes: FAST, NON-CRITICAL, SLOW and OFF. The propagation delays of the 1-bit FA and 4-bit ripple-carry FA are 240 ps and 675 ps respectively in the FAST mode. All the simulation and layouts were done using Cadence 4.4.6 and IBM SiGe 7HP design kit version 1.1.1.0.