Integrated Circuit Design Based on Carbon Nanotube Field Effect Transistor

Abstract

As complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) continues to scale down deeper into the nanoscale, various device non-idealities cause the I-V characteristics to be substantially different from well-tempered metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs). The last few years witnessed a dramatic increase in nanotechnology research, especially the nanoelectronics. These technologies vary in their maturity. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are at the forefront of these new materials because of the unique mechanical and electronic properties. CNTFET is the most promising technology to extend or complement traditional silicon technology due to three reasons: first, the operation principle and the device structure are similar to CMOS devices and it is possible to reuse the established CMOS design infrastructure. Second, it is also possible to reuse CMOS fabrication process. And the most important reason is that CNTFET has the best experimentally demonstrated device current carrying ability to date. This paper discusses and reviewsthe feasibility of the CNTFET's application at this point of time in integrated circuits design by investigating different types of circuit blocks considering the advantages that the CNTFETs offer.

Performance Comparison of High-Speed High-Order (n:2) and (n:3) CNFET-Based Compressors

“…Since dimensional down scaling of CMOS transistors is reaching its fundamental physical limits, various researches have been actively carried out to find an alternative way to continue following Moore's law [13]. Among many candidate emerging technologies, CNFET is a promising technology to be extended, due to three main reasons: First, the operation principle and the device structure are similar to current CMOS devices and it is possible to reuse the established CMOS design infrastructure.…”

“…Based on many reported technical literature, CNFETs have superior properties such as excellent current handling capabilities and high thermal conductivity [13]- [15]. Because of their miniaturized dimensions, they are implemented as a reliable switch with much less power than a silicon-based device to response of increasing sensitivity to voltage scaling variations in today's VLSI circuit designs.…”

Analytical Distinction Between Cntfet Based And Mosfet Based Srams And Logic Gates

“…Here, the ternary logic is represented by: 0, 1, 2 where 0 means FALSE, 1 means Undefined and 2 means TRUE. In terms of voltage levels, 0 = ground potential, 1 = 2.5 V, 2 = 5 V [13], [14]. In a CNTFET, multi threshold voltage can be obtained by varying the chiral vector as well as diameter of the CNT.…”

“…Basic arithmetic and logic operations such as: Arithmetic addition and subtraction, AND, OR, NOT, NAND, NOR etc. can be performed in ternary logic [13], [14].…”

“…Memory cells like SRAM (Static Random Access Memory) and DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) have been designed in different ways with different architectures (actually different number of transistors) along the years. Again, to perform digital operations, logic gate is an inevitable part in design procedure and CNTFET can also be implemented in multi-valued logic gate architecture for its tremendous performance over MOSFET based logic gates [2]. This provides a considerable amount of overall performance improvement in digital logic circuitry [3].…”