A 0.3-µm sub-10-ns ECL 4-Mb BiCMOS DRAM design is described. The results obtained are: 1) a Vcc connection limiter with a BiCMOS output circuit is chosen due to ease of design, excellent device reliability, and layout area; 2) a mostly CMOS periphery with a specific bipolar use provides better performances at high speed and low power; 3) the direct sensing scheme of a single-stage MOS preamplifier combined with a bipolar main amplifier offers high speed; and 4) the strict control of MOS transistor parameters has been proven to be more important in obtaining high speed-DRAM's, based on the 4-Mb design.