A JSSC classic paper: The simple model of CMOS drain current

In a recent update of the Web list of frequently cited JSSC articles, an April 1990 paper by Takayasu Sakurai and A. Richard Newton on “Alpha-power law MOSFET model and its applications to CMOS inverter delay and other formulas” joined the list of articles cited more than 100 times according to the annual Journal Citation Reports published by Thomson ISI. At the time the paper was written, Sakurai had just taken a break from a seven-year career working on memories at Toshiba to come to the University of California, Berkeley, as a visiting scholar and worked with Richard Newton, the dean of Berkeley's Electrical Engineering Department. Writing now from the Center for Collaborative Research and the Institute of Industrial Science at the University of Tokyo, Sakurai summarizes the inspiration and impact of this paper.