A Model to Understand Current Consumption, Maximum Operating Frequency and Scaling Trends of MCML Frequency Dividers

In this work, the effect of digital CMOS technology down scaling on the performances of MOS current mode logic frequency dividers is addressed. A fast and effective methodology to design the dividers is presented. The insight given by the methodology is then exploited to study the down scaling of MCML dividers by considering two CMOS technologies representative of the 130nm and 90nm technology nodes. The model provides quantitatively accurate predictions of the advantages of scaling on current consumption and maximum frequency of operation