A Nano-Scale Programmable Logic Gate Based on Single-Electron Devices

Abstract

In this paper, a novel nano-scale single-stage programmable logic gate using single-electron transistor is proposed which its operation can be controlled only by a control voltage. In fact, one can determine logic operation of the logic gate as all famous logic gates (OR, AND, NOR, NAND, XOR and XNOR) only by tuning a control voltage. We have used unique periodic characteristic of single-electron transistor to design this novel nano-scale programmable logic gate in a single-stage circuit. Moreover, we have presented optimized design to have maximum margin for low and high states in output. In conventional monotonic devices, such as BJTs and MOSFETs, implementing non-monotonic logic gates such as XOR is not possible by a single-stage design due to their inherent monotonic input-output characteristics; Therefore, a multi-stage design is required which leads to more complexity, higher power consumption, and more area. This work is a groundbreaking development because designing such programmable logic gate is not possible by a single-stage circuit in such conventional technologies. Results of the proposed designs are calculated by analytical approaches and are then confirmed by numerical methods which show an excellent agreement.