Thermodynamic Study of Energy Dissipation in Adiabatic Superconductor Logic

Abstract

Adiabatic superconductor logic, in which bit-switching energy can be reduced significantly by changing the potential energy landscape adiabatically, is an attractive candidate for next-generation energy-efficient computing. The authors' simulations of the effect of thermal noise on energy dissipation in this logic scheme show that there is no lower bound on the energy of switching operations, indicating that so-called reversible computing is achievable even at finite temperature, and thus ushering the technique toward practical use.