Explosive growth calls for more mixed-voltage analog integrated circuits

The explosive growth of the consumer electronics market in the last two decades (1989-2009) has led to a great demand of low-cost, high-performance integrated systems. The most effective way for cost minimization is by manufacturing the system chips in advanced nanoscale complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technologies, given that most modern microsystems are dominated by digital circuits. Entered into the nanoscale CMOS regime, 90-, 65- or 45-nm processes are expected to deliver substantial improvements in speed and power reduction for digital circuits in comparison to the current sub-micron-scale technologies.