Solid state: The case for CMOS: Its low power consumption and many design choices mean that by the decade's end, half of all ICs may be made by this technique

For much of its 20-year history, complementary-MOS technology was considered a runner-up when designing solid-state circuits. However, with the dawning of the very iarge-scaie-integration (VLSI) era, CMOS has proven to be as reliable and cost-competitive as its rival n-channel-MOS and bipolar technologies, with the added advantages of lower power consumption and greater ease of circuit design. Almost all U.S. and Japanese semiconductor suppliers - including Intel Corp., Hitachi Ltd., Mitsubishi Ltd., Motorola Inc., National Semiconductor Corp., Texas Instruments Inc., and Toshiba Corp., among others - are building more and more commercial CMOS products. Also, a number of the brassboards in the U.S. Department of Defense's Very High Speed Integrated Circuits (VHSIC) program are being built with CMOS technology.