Bill, Re: "Paul, Are not the fastest processors done in ECL, a non saturating logic?"
Bill, I'll intercept this one since I'm the "big, fast computer guy" around here that is still working. The fastest processors were done in ECL, as you say, for about 20 years. Then, CMOS finally caught up to ECL in the early 90's in terms of speed, well, close enough, while possessing huge advantages in density in terms of gates per chip, and power. So now, ECL, and all other forms of bipolar, including BiCMOS are dead, or dying. Take it back, Hitachi has a S390 line called Skyline that's part bipolar and part CMOS. As for Intel, I believe Paul will say that they used BiCMOS for a while, but, I'm guessing, 3 or 4 years ago, they found a way to get rid of it in favor of all CMOS. Exponential is out of business.
Bottom line is that ECL is dead, any usage of bipolar in microprocessors and computers is minor compared to CMOS, and Intel doesn't do bipolar.
Tony |
