High speed GaAs ICs (Integrated Circutis) using FETs (Field Effect Transistors) are reported. As the fabricating techniques, ion implantation processes for both 0.5 µm and 0.2 µm gate FETs using W/Al refractory metal and 0.2 µm recessed gate process with MBE grown epitaxial wafers are shown. These fabrication processes are selected depending on the circuit speed and the integration level. The outline of the circuit design and the examples of ICs, which are developed for 10 Gb/s optical communication systems, are also shown with the obtained characteristics.

This paper describes the architecture and the performances of a GaAs 88 self-routing switch LSI for ATM switching system. The communication system such as broadband integrated sevices digital network (B-ISDN) requires the hardware switch LSI which exchanges packet cells at a date rate up to several Gb/s. GaAs LSIs are suitable for such application because of its high speed operation and low power dissipation. To clarify the feasibility of GaAs LSI, an 88 self-routing switch LSI is fabricated using 0.5 µm gate GaAs MESFETs and its oerformances are examined. This LSI consists of a switching network for exchanging the packet cells and the "NEMAWASHI" network which detects the cell destined to the same output port. The basic network architecture is a self-routing switch using Batcher-Banyan network. This network consists of basic 22 switch element. Since each element switches the route accorging to the destination of the input cells, self-routing operation is performed without the external circuit for routing control. The LSI is fabricated using 0.5 µm gate GaAs MESFETs. 7003 logic gate are integrated on the chip of 8.2 mm7.4 mm. To reduce the impedance of ground line on the chip and to obtain the enough noise margin, the third level interconnection with low sheet resistance is implemented. As the results of functional evalution, the full function of switching network and "NEMAWASHI" network are verified. Maximum operation speed of 1 GHz is obtained.