Design Considerations of Dense Bipolar PLA's

This paper presents a study on the custom design of dense bipolar programmable-logic-array (PLA) circuits. Technology issues and circuit choices are addressed and the trade-offs between density and performance are discussed. It is concluded that device density is of key importance to the overall circuit density of a PLA. A very dense PLA can be designed with its decoder implemented using merged transistor logic (MTL) circuits and array crosspoints using butted-emitter transistor layout. Copyright © 1987 by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.