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Advanced Very-Low-Voltage CMOS Logic Innovation and Aggressive Support Earn Texas Instruments Top Spot in Logic
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Innovation and Aggressive Support Earn Texas Instruments Top Spot in LogicTexas Instruments' long-held position as the leading supplier of logic semiconductors is founded on a bedrock of technological breakthroughs, and actively aggressive user support and service second to none. A Logical Place to Start an Industry The start of the logic market, and indeed the entire semiconductor industry, can be traced to TI's invention of the integrated circuit by Jack Kilby in 1958. Out of that modest genesis consisting of a seemingly simple integrated circuit with one transistor, three resistors and one capacitor, the semiconductor industry has grown and flourished. Ever since TI introduced TTL (Transistor-Transistor Logic) logic in 1964, it has commanded a leadership position by identifying customer needs and subsequently developing the technology and support mechanisms to meet these requirements. With a vigilant eye on the trends and forces at work in the logic marketplace, TI has achieved the many technical "firsts" that are a true sign of an industry leader. These firsts include low-voltage logic, Widebus™ (the industry's first 16+-bit logic devices), and Bus Hold™. Throughout the intervening years since the beginning of the logic market, TI has assembled a broad line of leading-edge logic products. The company now makes and supports more than 11,000 different logic products within more than 25 families. Additionally, every product is fully supported with the tools, documentation and Web resources designers need to bring their end products to market faster than the competition. Thus, it's not surprising that TI has become the industry's preferred one-stop logic supplier. The Force of Logic In recent years, several forces have shaped the logic market. First, the amount of power consumed by digital computer and communication systems has decreased year after year, dropping from 5V to 3.3V and now even lower voltage levels, like 2.5V and 1.8V. As a result of this trend, TI has led logic's transition to lower voltages. In fact, when TI's Low Voltage Technology (LVT) logic family was introduced in 1992, it was the first logic family designed for 3.3V. This shift to lower voltages has complicated many development projects by introducing mixed voltage mode designs. In some instances, a processor core may run at 2.5V or 1.8V, while the rest of the design is made up of 3.3V or 5V devices. In response to this situation, TI has led the way with mixed voltage-scaleable logic technology. For example, the recently introduced AVC (Advanced Very-low-voltage CMOS) logic family is optimized for 2.5V operation, but all of the devices in the family are also specified for operation at 3.3V and 1.8V, while remaining 3.3V I/O tolerant. AVC is the fastest logic family available today at 3.3V, 2.5V and 1.8V. A constant trend in the electronics industry over the last 20 years has been the miniaturization of digital systems. Laptop computers and cellular phones have gotten much smaller and lighter. TI's logic group has pioneered many new packaging techniques intended to give developers additional options and greater versatility. For example, the Microgate logic and PicoGate logic packages offer just one gate of logic in an extremely small five-pin package. Devices in these packages are available in several of TI's logic families. They can be used to make quick fixes to ASICs (application specific integrated circuits), simplify board routing, implement last minute design modifications or simply squeeze more logic into tight spots in a design. Additionally, TI has pioneered the way toward finer-pitch logic packaging standards with the TSSOP (Thin Shrink Small-Outline Package) and TVSOP (Thin Very Small-Outline Package) packages. These packaging options have made it possible to produce logic devices with greater bit-widths, and they've also given designers the freedom to do more with less circuit board space. Committed to Innovation Over the years, TI has tracked the trends in the logic market and has responded by developing new logic capabilities to meet designers' changing needs. The company's willingness to continually develop innovative technologies has thrust its logic families to the forefront in performance, unique features and functionality. Combining these characteristics with advanced fabrication processes has allowed the company's logic products to consistently establish new levels of price-performance excellence. One of TI's recent logic innovations involves a high-performance internal circuit that has maximum propagation delays of less than two nanoseconds (ns) possible for the first time. This circuitry, which is called Dynamic Output Control (DOC™), also reduces component costs and saves board space by eliminating the need for discrete damping resistors. DOC automatically lowers the output impedance of the circuit during a signal transition and subsequently raises the impedance to reduce noise. The DOC circuit provides enough current to achieve high signaling speeds, but quickly switches the impedance level to reduce the undershoot and overshoot noise that is often found in high-speed logic. When implemented in TI's new AVC logic family, DOC eliminates the need for damping resistors, which are often used in series and sometimes integrated with logic devices to limit electrical noise. Many designs require the use of damping resistors solely to reduce undershoot and overshoot noise, but these resistors also increase the propagation delay by slowing signals as they pass through the circuitry. Because AVC logic can control noise without damping resistors, it is able to achieve its record-setting maximum propagation delay speeds of less than two ns. With another advanced logic feature, designers can eliminate the pullup or pulldown resistors that are used to prevent unused or floating input signals. The Bus Hold feature on many of TI's logic families consists of two back-to-back inverters, which hold the last known input state and take the place of external or integrated resistors. Bus Hold has been implemented on several TI logic families, including ABT, ALVC, GTL, LVC and LVT. Live, or hot, insertion of boards into system backplanes has become increasingly important for applications like telecommunications, where a high value is placed on system availability. Without hot insertion, the system would have to be completely powered down when a board is inserted or removed. Several of TI's logic families, including the ABT, FB+, GTL, LVC and LVT families, support a power-off feature that disables outputs from the device in order to support live insertion. Customer Support Certainly the market's technology needs have driven logic product development, but TI has a long established policy of placing user support services on an equal footing with technological breakthroughs. While the company has monitored users for technological shifts, it has not neglected to determine what sorts of tools are needed to facilitate an easy implementation of new technologies. The Logic Selection Guide and Databook CD-ROM is a good example of TI's support focus. One CD-ROM contains more than 17,000 pages of documentation arranged in a simple, easy-to-use format. The CD-ROM with its menu-driven navigation capabilities provides the fastest way to find data sheets, application reports and device models. In addition, the "Logic Products Overview" can be easily downloaded from TI's web site (www.ti.com/sc/logic). The Overview includes a logic family specification chart, quick reference selection guide, and information on TI's specialty logic and a logic migration chart that helps designers choose their next generation logic. Commitment to Leadership Texas Instruments is deeply committed to much more than simply serving the diverse product needs of the logic market. Consequently, the company has set its course on performing a leadership role and fulfilling all of the requirements that such a role demands. The exceptional breadth of its logic product offerings, its record of technological breakthroughs over the last three decades, and its comprehensive user support tools, materials and programs all demonstrate the deep-rooted and abiding dedication the company has for the logic market.
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