A monolithic 10-b digital-to-analog converter using ion implantation

The design and fabrication of a self-contained 10-b monolithic digital-to-analog converter is described. To overcome the limitations of standard bipolar processing and to achieve a circuit with reasonably low process sensitivities, a new process incorporating ion implantation is used. The circuit has been designed in a manner to fully utilize the characteristics of this process with the objective of high performance along with simple wafer processing. System consideration as well as the design of each component block are discussed.