Characterization and modeling of CMOS devices at 4.2 K are carried out in order to simulate low-temperature operation of CMOS circuits for Josephson-CMOS hybrid systems. CMOS devices examined in this study have been fabricated by using 0.18 m, 0.25 m, and 0.35 m commercial CMOS processes. Their static I-V characteristics and capacitances are measured at 4.2 K to establish the low-temperature device model based on the BSIM3 SPICE model. The propagation delays of CMOS inverters measured by using ring oscillators agree well with the simulation results. The experimental results indicate about 40% speedup from 300 K to 4.2 K. A three-transistor DRAM cell for a Josephson-CMOS hybrid memory is also investigated at low temperature. The temperature dependence of the retention time shows an exponential increase at low temperatures. Based on the lowtemperature CMOS device model, we have developed short-delay CMOS amplifiers, which would amplify a 40 mV voltage input to CMOS voltage level with the propagation delay of about 100 ps, assuming the use of a 0.18 m CMOS process. We have measured the propagation delay of the CMOS amplifier by using a single-flux-quantum (SFQ) delay measurement system. This is a complete demonstration of the signal exchanges between SFQ and CMOS circuits at 4.2 K.
A 64-kbit sub-nanosecond Josephson-CMOS hybrid RAM memory is being developed with hybrid high-speed interface circuits. The hybrid memory is designed and fabricated by using commercially available 0.25 m and 0.35 m CMOS processes and the NEC (SRL) 2.5 kA/cm2 and UC Berkeley's 6.5 kA/cm2 Nb processes for Josephson junctions. In order to simulate the low-temperature CMOS circuits, 4 K CMOS device models are established by extracting from experiments. The measurements made at 4 K include static I-V characteristics, gate capacitances and source and drain capacitances. Details of the modeling are found in a companion paper in this issue. Performance of the high-speed interface circuits is optimized by minimizing the parasitic capacitance loading. Both the functional test and high-speed measurement for the interface circuit will be discussed. The whole structure of the memory, including interface circuit, decoder, memory cell, and Josephson read-out circuit is proposed and fabricated. From simulation, a total access time well below 1 ns is expected. The power for the whole system is about 32 mW at 1 GHz. Plans for further power and access time reduction are described.
We have measured access time of a 16-kbit Josephson-CMOS hybrid memory by using an SFQ delay measurement system. The delay measurement system is composed of a Josephson latching driver to generate input signals for the memory, an SFQ clock generator and counter to measure the time interval, and a current sense circuit to detect the current output from the memory. The time resolution of the system corresponds to a clock period of the clock generator, which is 50 ps in our design. In these preliminary measurements, we have observed a memory access time of about 4 ns, where the parasitic capacitance of the bonding pad of the Josephson chip limits the access time at present. This is the first demonstration of the access time measurement of a complete Josephson-CMOS hybrid memory.
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