Design of a novel Quantum-dot Cellular Automata Field Programmable Gate Array

Abstract

This paper presents a novel design of a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) based on Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA) technology. QCA is a transistorless emerging technology based on Coulombic repulsion. It is being explored as one of the alternative technologies which may replace CMOS in the future. In this work, QCA based nano FPGAs are designed and simulated. The designs of the Configurable Logic Block (CLB) and the Programmable Switch Matrix (PSM) are first developed separately and then integrated together to form a complete QCA based FPGA. The circuit components are designed to take full advantage of the unique features of QCA technology. It is observed that the proposed circuits have less latency and occupy less area compared to earlier designs. Also, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first integrated design of a QCA based FPGA which includes both CLBs and PSMs. The FPGA is designed and simulated using the QCADesigner tool.