Present and Future of Bipolar Technologies

Bipolar Integrated Circuits, in common with almost every brand of microelectronics, is evolving at a pace that would be considered revolutionary in just about every other area of technology. The importance that computers, communications and defence systems have in our society, the new market opportunities that become available due to integrated circuits advances and the healthy competition between bipolar and MOS is fuelling this evolution. Bipolar and MOS compete for many applications and performance, flexibility and ultimately cost, determine the choice. The fundamental advantage of most MOS processes is their simplicity leading to better yields and therefore lower costs and larger scale of integration. Bipolar circuits on the other hand are generally considered to be more flexible, faster and capable of handling larger currents.