Ternary and quaternary logic to binary bit conversion CMOS integrated circuit design using multiple input floating gate MOSFETs

Multiple-input floating gate MOSFETs and floating gate potential diagrams have been used for conversion of ternary-valued input and quaternary-valued input into corresponding binary-valued output in CMOS integrated circuit design environment. The method is demonstrated through the design of a circuit for conversion of ternary inputs 00 to -1-1 (decimal 0 to -4) and 00 to 11 (decimal 0 to +4) into the corresponding binary bits and for conversion of quaternary inputs (decimal 0 to 3) into the corresponding binary bits (binary 00 to 11) in a standard 1.5 mm digital CMOS technology. The physical design of the circuits is simulated and tested with SPICE using MOSIS BSIM3 model parameters. The conversion method is simple and compatible with the present CMOS process. The circuits could be embedded in digital CMOS VLSI design architectures. The conversion circuit for ternary inputs into corresponding binary outputs has maximum propagation delay of 8 ns with 0.1 pF simulated capacitive load. The physical layout design occupies an area of 432´908 mm2. The conversion circuit for quaternary inputs to corresponding binary outputs has maximum propagation delay of 6 ns with 0.1 pF simulated capacitive load. The physical layout design occupies an area of 130´175 mm2. The conversion circuit achieved significant improvement in the number of devices. A reduction of more than 75% in transistor count was obtained over the previous designs. Measurements of the fabricated devices for the conversion of quaternary input into binary output agree with simulated values

IUS/payload communication system simulator configuration definition study

The requirements and specifications for a general purpose payload communications system simulator to be used to emulate those communications system portions of NASA and DOD payloads/spacecraft that will in the future be carried into earth orbit by the shuttle are discussed. For the purpose of on-orbit checkout, the shuttle is required to communicate with the payloads while they are physically located within the shuttle bay (attached) and within a range of 20 miles from the shuttle after they have been deployed (detached). Many of the payloads are also under development (and many have yet to be defined), actual payload communication hardware will not be available within the time frame during which the avionic hardware tests will be conducted. Thus, a flexible payload communication system simulator is required

Ternary to binary converter design in CMOS using multiple input floating gate MOSFETS

In this work, a ternary to binary converter circuit is designed in 0.5μm n-well CMOS technology. The circuit takes two inputs corresponding to the ternary bits and gives four outputs, which are the binary equivalent bits of the ternary inputs. The ternary inputs range from (-1,-1)3 to (1,1) 3 which are decimal -4 to 4 and the four binary output bits are the sign bit (SB), most significant bit (MSB), second significant bit (SSB) and the least significant bit (LSB). The ternary inputs (-1, 0 and 1) are represented in terms of voltages of -3V, 0V and 3V. Multiple input floating gate (MIFG) MOSFETS are used in the design of ternary to binary converter. The four circuits to generate the SB, MSB, SSB and LSB outputs are designed separately and then connected together to perform the entire conversion. The MIFG MOSFET takes multiple input signals, which are the ternary inputs in this case and calculates the weighted sum of the inputs. This weighted sum of the inputs is called floating gate voltage and is given as input to the CMOS inverter. The CMOS inverter gives a high or low binary output depending on if the floating gate voltage is higher or lower than the threshold voltage of the CMOS inverter. The circuits are simulated using MOSIS BSIM level 7 model parameters. LEDIT version 13 is used for the layout and a total of 22 transistors are used in the design of the converter circuit. The floating gate of the transistor is simulated by not giving the input directly to the gate of the transistor. Instead inputs are fed to one end of the capacitors and the other end of the capacitors are tied together and given as an input to the inverter. The converter chip occupies an area of 1140 × 2090 μm2

CUTIE: Beyond PetaOp/s/W Ternary DNN Inference Acceleration with Better-than-Binary Energy Efficiency

We present a 3.1 POp/s/W fully digital hardware accelerator for ternary neural networks. CUTIE, the Completely Unrolled Ternary Inference Engine, focuses on minimizing non-computational energy and switching activity so that dynamic power spent on storing (locally or globally) intermediate results is minimized. This is achieved by 1) a data path architecture completely unrolled in the feature map and filter dimensions to reduce switching activity by favoring silencing over iterative computation and maximizing data re-use, 2) targeting ternary neural networks which, in contrast to binary NNs, allow for sparse weights which reduce switching activity, and 3) introducing an optimized training method for higher sparsity of the filter weights, resulting in a further reduction of the switching activity. Compared with state-of-the-art accelerators, CUTIE achieves greater or equal accuracy while decreasing the overall core inference energy cost by a factor of 4.8x-21x