Capacitor-free level-sensitive active pull-down ECL circuit with self-adjusting driving capability

This paper introduces a new, self-adjusting active pull-down circuit for ECL that uses voltage regulation rather than traditional load-dependent capacitive coupling. Depending on the application, a 3.5X speed improvement over traditional ECL at comparable power, or a 7.1X power reduction at comparable performance can be obtained. A voltage regulation and distribution circuit for the required V/sub REG/ reference voltage is also presented.