Programmable Crossbar Quantum-Dot Cellular Automata Circuits

Abstract

Quantum-dot fabrication and characterization is a well-established technology, which is used in photonics, quantum optics and nanoelectronics. Four quantum-dots placed at the corners of a square form a unit cell, which can hold a bit of information and serve as a basis for Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA) nanoelectronic circuits. Although several basic QCA circuits have been designed, fabricated and tested, proving that quantum-dots can form functional, fast and low-power nanoelectornic circuits, QCA nanoelectronics still remain at its infancy. One of the reasons for this is the lack of design automation tools, which will facilitate the systematic design of large QCA circuits that contemporary applications demand. Here we present novel, programmable QCA circuits, which are based on crossbar architecture. These circuits can be programmed to implement any Boolean function in analogy to CMOS FPGAs and open the road that will lead to full design automation of QCA nanoelectronic circuits. Using this architecture we designed and simulated QCA circuits that proved to be area efficient, stable and reliable.

Synchronization in Quantum-Dot Cellular Automata Circuits and Systems

“…To make this more clear in the following table is presented. In the first row the occupied area of a 32-bit adder by using the one-bit full adder in [6] is presented. In the second row the occupied area of a 32-bit adder by using the one-bit full adder in [13] is presented.…”

“…Q UANTUM-dot Cellular Automata (QCA) is a promising nanoelectronic technology, that takes advantage of quantum phenomena and Coulomb interactions, used to design digital circuits that are size, energy and speed efficient [1]. After its introduction [2], many digital circuits, design methodologies and architectures [3], [4], [5], [6], [7] have been published in the literature. Along with the expansion of the ready-to-implement applications in QCA technology, new fabrication processes are also proposed [8].…”

“…is almost 7 times larger, it uses 3 times more 4 quantumdot cells and it is 5 times slower than the full adder that is presented in [6]. Also, if a larger circuit is needed to be designed, the complexity of these methods is raised in an almost exponential manner.…”

Optimal synthesis of QCA logic circuit eliminating wire‐crossings

“…1h. The interconnection of serial lines and input wires create the crossbar network [29][30][31]. This network uses the idea of a parallel-to-serial converter to copy the four parallel inputs (i.e.…”

A dynamically reconfigurable logic cell: from artificial neural networks to quantum-dot cellular automata

“…Despite its tremendous potential, quantum-dot cellular automata (QCA) has failed to substitute the CMOS technology in the design of digital circuits and systems Lombardi et al (2007). One major reason behind this predicament is the lack of electronic design and automation (EDA) support that could lead to a standard optimized implementation of the Boolean expressions Kalogeiton et al (2017). On the contrary, EDA tools for the CMOS technology are likely to generate an identical (optimized) circuit for apparently different behavioral descriptions of the same entity in a hardware description language (HDL).…”