First-Hand:Cryo CMOS and 40+ layer PC Boards - How Crazy is
this? Contributed by: Tony Vacca How it started It was in the
early 80's. Control Data (CDC) had just launched the CYBER - 205
with modest success and the team was now focused on the next
generation machine, the 2XX as I recall. Speed, cost and meeting
the schedule were all key objectives. Speed because Cray
Research under the guidance of Seymour Cray was setting
milestones for Supercomputers with the Cray 1 and then the Cray
2. Cost, since Supercomputers were extremely expensive.
Schedules since the CYBER - 205 had established patience records
as a machine that may never get out the door and this must not
be repeated. A conventional evolutionary approach for Integrated
Circuit (IC) logic was initially selected. Motorola, with some
prodding, agreed to launch an 8,000 gate equivalent ECL
(emitter-coupled-logic - the circuitry of choice for high
performance processing units) provided that Control Data do the
actual circuit development. There were insuf