Thursday, September 13, 2007

CMOS

Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) ("see-moss", IPA: ['si.mɜs]), is a major class of integrated circuits. CMOS technology is used in chips such as microprocessors, microcontrollers, static RAM, and other digital logic circuits. CMOS technology is also used for a wide variety of analog circuits such as image sensors, data converters, and highly integrated transceivers for many types of communication.

CMOS is also sometimes explained as complementary-symmetry metal–oxide–semiconductor. The words "complementary-symmetry" refer to the fact that the typical digital design style with CMOS uses complementary and symmetrical pairs of p-type and n-type MOSFETs for logic functions.

Two important characteristics of CMOS devices are high noise immunity and low static power supply drain. Significant power is only drawn when its transistors are switching between on and off states; consequently, CMOS devices do not produce as much heat as other forms of logic such as TTL (transistor-transistor logic). CMOS also allows a high density of logic functions on a chip.

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