Design Automation Methodology from RTL to Gate-level Netlist and Schematic for RSFQ Logic Circuits

Abstract

The superconducting rapid single flux quantum (RSFQ) logic circuit has the characteristics of high speed and low power consumption, making it an attractive candidate for future supercomputers. However, computer-aided design (CAD) tools for CMOS cannot be directly applied to RSFQ logic due to their distinct properties. For instance, the RSFQ logic gate can work properly when all its fan-ins have the same logic level. This paper presents the design flow from RTL to RSFQ logic netlist and schematic. First, we implement logic synthesis for RSFQ logic circuits. It achieves path balancing while minimizing the number of DFFs. In addition, we propose an automatic schematic generator for the RSFQ logic circuits. It converts the synthesized netlist into its equivalent schematic. A layer assignment algorithm is proposed, which makes all gates layered in the order of the clock arrival time. Experimental results with ISCAS85 and EPFL benchmarks along with some Kogge-Stone adders have shown a 29.2% reduction in the number of DFFs over the breadth-first first search; moreover, 59.57% and 5.3% decrease in the number of layers of the schematic and number of edge crossings over the ELK tool.