Binary Adders on Quantum-Dot Cellular Automata

Ismo Hänninen, Jarmo Takala
2008 Journal of Signal Processing Systems  
This article describes the design of adder units on quantum-dot cellular automata (QCA) nanotechnology, which promises very dense circuits and high operating frequencies, using a single homogeneous layer of the basic cells. We construct pipelined structures without the earlier noise problems, avoided by careful clocking organization, and the modular layouts are verified with the QCADesigner coherence vector simulation. Our designs occupy only a fraction of area compared to the previous noise
more » ... ecting design, while having also superior performance, and it is shown that the wiring overhead of the arithmetic circuits on QCA grows with square-law dependence on the operand word length. Power analysis at the fundamental Landauer's limit shows, that the operating frequencies will indeed be bound by the energy dissipated in information erasure: under irreversible operation, the clock rates of the adder units on molecular QCA are only tens of gigahertz, while the switching speed of the technology is in the terahertz regime.
doi:10.1007/s11265-008-0284-5 fatcat:3ro6hm3nynba5hrfsffjzaok7a