| n electronics, the important task of interfacing between the real-world of analog signals and digital computers is performed by analog-to-digital converters. With advances in telecommunications and digital signal processing, there is a need for faster and higher precision analog-to-digital (A/D) conversion with minimum power dissipation. Superconducting integrated circuit devices with extremely small aperture times (;So far, due to the nascent state of Josephson integrated circuit technology, process related spread in critical circuit parameters, such as, junction critical current, stripline inductances, and resistance values has resulted in the failure of even medium resolution A/D converters. In a fully parallel Josephson flash-type analog-to-digital converter, process spreads manifest as random offsets in the threshold levels of the current-mode comparators comprising the A/D quantizer. We propose a novel 4 K CMOS self-calibration circuit for correcting/nulling the effect of process spreads by taking advantage of the availability of high accuracy, MOSFET current sources in the well established CMOS integrated circuit technology. Such a hybrid approach combines the low power, high speed capabilities of Josephson circuits with the high resolution capability of MOSFET devices.;The hybrid Josephson-CMOS integrated circuits were made possible owing to the development of the first low-voltage, nonhysteretic CMOS LSI process for 4 K operation, at the Cryoelectronics laboratory in U. C. Berkeley. The low temperature superconducting Nb/AlO;We discuss in detail the various problems encountered during the development of Josephson-CMOS circuits and their solution. Among the key hurdles was the hysteresis in the CMOS current-voltage characteristics at 4 K. The research for this dissertation demonstrated the first known CMOS analog circuits operating at 4 K. A low power (25... |
