An Introduction to Digital Logic Families

What is a Logic Family?

In Digital Designs, our primary aim is to create an Integrated Circuit (IC).

A Circuit configuration or arrangement of the circuit elements in a special manner will result in a particular Logic Family.

What are the advantages of creating different Logic Families?

Electrical Characteristics of the  IC will be identical. In other words, the different parameters like Noise Margin, Fan In, Fan Out etc will be identical.

Different ICs belonging to the same logic families will be compatible with each other.

Some Characteristics we consider for the selection of a particular Logic Family are:

• Supply voltage range 
• Speed of response 
• Power dissipation 
• Input and output logic levels 
• Current sourcing and sinking capability
• Fan-out 
• Noise margin

The basic Classification of the Logic Families are as follows:

• Bipolar Devices
• MOS Devices
• Hybrid Devices

 Bipolar Families:

1. Diode Logic (DL)
2. Resistor Transistor Logic (RTL)
3. Diode Transistor Logic (DTL)
4. Transistor- Transistor Logic (TTL)
5. Emitter Coupled Logic (ECL) or Current Mode Logic (CML)
6. Integrated Injection Logic (IIL)

MOS Families:

1. P-MOS Family
2. N-MOS Family
3. Complementary-MOS Family 
1.  Standard C-MOS
2. Clocked C-MOS 
3. Bi-CMOS
4. Pseudo N-MOS
5. C-MOS Domino Logic
6. Pass Transistor Logic

 Hybrid Family:

1. Bi-CMOS Family

Diode Logic 

In DL (diode logic), only Diode and Resistors are used for implementing a particular Logic.Remember that the Diode conducts only when it is Forward Biased.

Disadvantages of Diode Logic

• Diode Logic suffers from voltage degradation from one stage to the next.
• Diode Logic only permits OR and AND functions.

Resistor Transistor Logic
In RTL (resistor transistor logic), all the logic are implemented using resistors and transistors. One basic thing about the transistor (NPN), is that HIGH at input causes output to be LOW (i.e. like a inverter). In the case of PNP transistor, the LOW at input causes output to be HIGH.

RTL Circuit

Advantage:

• Less number of Transistors

Disadvantage:

• High Power Dissipation
• Low Fan In

Diode Transistor Logic
In DTL (Diode transistor logic), all the logic is implemented using diodes and transistors.

DTL Logic

Disadvantage:

• Propagation Delay is Larger

Transistor Tansistor Logic
In Transistor Transistor logic or just TTL, logic gates are built only around transistors.
TTL Logic has the following sub-families:

• Standard TTL.
• High Speed TTL
• Low Power TTL.
• Schhottky TTL.
• Low Power Schottky TTL
• Advanced Schottky TTL
• Advanced Low Power Schottky TTL
• Fast Schottky

Emitter Coupled Logic
The main specialty of ECL is that it is operating in Active Region than the Saturation Region. That is the reason for its high speed operation. As you can see in the figure, the Emitters of the Transistors Q1 and Q2 are coupled together.

Emitter Coupled Pair

Disadvantage:

• Large Silicon Area
• Large Power Consumption