ABSTRACT
Since the demonstration of the first transistor at Bell Laboratories in 1947 , rapid progress in the design and manufacture of semiconductors has led to gigahertz microprocessors and gigabit memories today. Thus, it was possible to reduce the size, weight, and cost of a circuit even while increasing its functionality. These breakthroughs eventually allowed the fabrication of billions of transistors in a single chip of silicon, enabling computing power far beyond that achievable by wiring together discrete transistors. This chapter describes the electrical properties of digital integrated circuits at the gate level. Ideally, a logic gate should process an infinite number of inputs, perform some logic function with zero time delay, be completely immune to the effects of loading by other gates, and consume zero power. Transient characteristics are of great importance because of their bearing on the speed characteristics of digital circuits, such as the clock frequency and off-chip data rates.
