Thanks for pointing out your article about the 76477. Fascinating stuff.

As for my second paragraph about "digital-analog", this reference on VCO-based quantizers [1] is not the one I remember but I think is related. Not that I really understand the intricacies, but it's a way of doing analog at low-voltages and finer geometries.

[1] http://ewh.ieee.org/r5/central_texas/cas_ssc/meetings/2012/1...