Design of Adiabatic MTJ-CMOS Hybrid Circuits

Low-power designs are a necessity with the increasing demand of portable devices which are battery operated. In many of such devices the operational speed is not as important as battery life. Logic-in-memory structures using nano-devices and adiabatic designs are two methods to reduce the static and dynamic power consumption respectively. Magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) is an emerging technology which has many advantages when used in logic-in-memory structures in conjunction with CMOS. In this paper, we introduce a novel adiabatic hybrid MTJ/CMOS structure which is used to design AND/NAND, XOR/XNOR and 1-bit full adder circuits. We simulate the designs using HSPICE with 32nm CMOS technology and compared it with a non-adiabatic hybrid MTJ/CMOS circuits. The proposed adiabatic MTJ/CMOS full adder design has more than 7 times lower power consumtion compared to the previous MTJ/CMOS full adder

Graphene-based current mode logic circuits: a simulation study for an emerging technology

In this paper, the usage of graphene transistors is introduced to be a suitable solution for extending low power designs. Static and current mode logic (CML) styles on both nanoscale graphene and silicon FINFET technologies are compared. Results show that power in CML styles approximately are independent of frequency and the graphene-based CML (G-CML) designs are more power-efficient as the frequency and complexity increase. Compared to silicon-based CML (Si-CML) standard cells, there is 94% reduction in power consumption for G-CML counterparts. Furthermore, a G-CML 4-bit adder respectively offers 8.9 and 1.7 times less power and delay than the Si-CML adder

Towards Logic Functions as the Device using Spin Wave Functions Nanofabric

As CMOS technology scaling is fast approaching its fundamental limits, several new nano-electronic devices have been proposed as possible alternatives to MOSFETs. Research on emerging devices mainly focusses on improving the intrinsic characteristics of these single devices keeping the overall integration approach fairly conventional. However, due to high logic complexity and wiring requirements, the overall system-level power, performance and area do not scale proportional to that of individual devices. Thereby, we propose a fundamental shift in mindset, to make the devices themselves more functional than simple switches. Our goal in this thesis is to develop a new nanoscale fabric paradigm that enables realization of arbitrary logic functions (with high fan-in/fan-out) more efficiently. We leverage on non-equilibrium spin wave physical phenomenon and wave interference to realize these elementary functions called Spin Wave Functions (SPWFs). In the proposed fabric, computation is based on the principle of wave superposition. Information is encoded both in the phase and amplitude of spin waves; thereby providing an opportunity for compressed data representation. Moreover, spin wave propagation does not involve any physical movement of charge particles. This provides a fundamental advantage over conventional charge based electronics and opens new horizons for novel nano-scale architectures. We show several variants of the SPWFs based on topology, signal weights, control inputs and wave frequencies. SPWF based designs of arithmetic circuits like adders and parallel counters are presented. Our efforts towards developing new architectures using SPWFs places strong emphasis on integrated fabric-circuit exploration methodology. With different topologies and circuit styles we have explored how capabilities at individual fabric components level can affect design and vice versa. Our estimates on benefits vs. 45nm CMOS implementation show that, for a 1-bit adder, up to 40x reduction in area and 228x reduction in power is possible. For the 2-bit adder, results show that up to 33x area reduction and 222x reduction in power may be possible. Building large scale SPWF-based systems, requires mechanisms for synchronization and data streaming. In this thesis, we present data streaming approaches based on Asynchronous SPWFs (A-SPWFs). As an example, a 32-bit Carry Completion Sensing Adder (CCSA) is shown based on the A-SPWF approach with preliminary power, performance and area evaluations

Skybridge: 3-D Integrated Circuit Technology Alternative to CMOS

Continuous scaling of CMOS has been the major catalyst in miniaturization of integrated circuits (ICs) and crucial for global socio-economic progress. However, scaling to sub-20nm technologies is proving to be challenging as MOSFETs are reaching their fundamental limits and interconnection bottleneck is dominating IC operational power and performance. Migrating to 3-D, as a way to advance scaling, has eluded us due to inherent customization and manufacturing requirements in CMOS that are incompatible with 3-D organization. Partial attempts with die-die and layer-layer stacking have their own limitations. We propose a 3-D IC fabric technology, Skybridge[TM], which offers paradigm shift in technology scaling as well as design. We co-architect Skybridge's core aspects, from device to circuit style, connectivity, thermal management, and manufacturing pathway in a 3-D fabric-centric manner, building on a uniform 3-D template. Our extensive bottom-up simulations, accounting for detailed material system structures, manufacturing process, device, and circuit parasitics, carried through for several designs including a designed microprocessor, reveal a 30-60x density, 3.5x performance per watt benefits, and 10X reduction in interconnect lengths vs. scaled 16-nm CMOS. Fabric-level heat extraction features are shown to successfully manage IC thermal profiles in 3-D. Skybridge can provide continuous scaling of integrated circuits beyond CMOS in the 21st century.Comment: 53 Page

Why area might reduce power in nanoscale CMOS

In this paper we explore the relationship between power and area. By exploiting parallelism (and thus using more area) one can reduce the switching frequency allowing a reduction in VDD which results in a reduction in power. Under a scaling regime which allows threshold voltage to increase as VDD decreases we find that dynamic and subthreshold power loss in CMOS exhibit a dependence on area proportional to A(s-3)s/ while gate leakage power ? A(s-6)s/, and short circuit power ? A(s-8)s/. Thus, with the large number of devices at our disposal we can exploit techniques such as spatial computing, tailoring the program directly to the hardware, to overcome the negative effects of scaling. The value of s describes the effectiveness of the technique for a particular circuit and/or algorithm - for circuits that exhibit a value of s =3, power will be a constant or reducing function of area. We briefly speculate on how s might be influenced by a move to nanoscale technology

Architecting SkyBridge-CMOS

As the scaling of CMOS approaches fundamental limits, revolutionary technology beyond the end of CMOS roadmap is essential to continue the progress and miniaturization of integrated circuits. Recent research efforts in 3-D circuit integration explore pathways of continuing the scaling by co-designing for device, circuit, connectivity, heat and manufacturing challenges in a 3-D fabric-centric manner. SkyBridge fabric is one such approach that addresses fine-grained integration in 3-D, achieves orders of magnitude benefits over projected scaled 2-D CMOS, and provides a pathway for continuing scaling beyond 2-D CMOS. However, SkyBridge fabric utilizes only single type transistors in order to reduce manufacture complexity, which limits its circuit implementation to dynamic logic. This design choice introduces multiple challenges for SkyBridge such as high switching power consumption, susceptibility to noise, and increased complexity for clocking. In this thesis we propose a new 3-D fabric, similar in mindset to SkyBridge, but with static logic circuit implementation in order to mitigate the afore-mentioned challenges. We present an integrated framework to realize static circuits with vertical nanowires, and co-design it across all layers spanning fundamental fabric structures to large circuits. The new fabric, named as SkyBridge-CMOS, introduces new technology, structures and circuit designs to meet the additional requirements for implementing static circuits. One of the critical challenges addressed here is integrating both n-type and p-type nanowires. Molecular bonding process allows precise control between different doping regions, and novel fabric components are proposed to achieve 3-D routing between various doping regions. Core fabric components are designed, optimized and modeled with their physical level information taken into account. Based on these basic structures we design and evaluate various logic gates, arithmetic circuits and SRAM in terms of power, area footprint and delay. A comprehensive evaluation methodology spanning material/device level to circuit level is followed. Benchmarking against 16nm 2-D CMOS shows significant improvement of up to 50X in area footprint and 9.3X in total power efficiency for low power applications, and 3X in throughput for high performance applications. Also, better noise resilience and better power efficiency can be guaranteed when compared with original SkyBridge fabrics