Electric Clock for NanoMagnet Logic Circuits - Field-Coupled Nanocomputing: Paradigms, Progress, and Perspectives - page 71

Electric Clock for NanoMagnet Logic Circuits

B

) , Alessandro Chiolerio 2 , 3 ,
Andrea Lamberti 2 , 3 , Marco Laurenti 2 , 3 , Davide Balma 4 , Emanuele Enrico 5 ,
Federica Celegato 5 , Paola Tiberto 5 , Luca Boarino 5 , and Maurizio Zamboni 1

Marco Vacca 1 , Mariagrazia Graziano 1(

1 Dipartimento di elettronica e telecomunicazioni, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy
[e-mail]
2 Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), Center for Space Human Robotics, Turin, Italy
3 Chilab - Materials and Microsystems Laboratory, Chivasso, Italy
4 Ceramics Laboratory, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne,
Lausanne, Switzerland
5 Istituto Nazionale per la Ricerca Metrologica (INRIM), Turin, Italy

Abstract. Among Field-Coupled technologies, NanoMagnet Logic
(NML) is one of the most promising. Low dynamic power consumption,
total absence of static power, remarkable heat and radiations resistance,
in association with the possibility of combining memory and logic in the
same device, make this technology the ideal candidate for low power,
portable applications. However, the necessity of using an external mag-
netic field to locally control the circuit represents, currently, the weakest
point of this technology. The high power losses in the clock generation
system adopted up to now wipes out the most important advantages of
this technology.
In this chapter we discuss a clock system based on a piezoelectric
actuator that allows electrical control of NanoMagnet Logic circuits. The
low power consumption coupled with the fact that electric fields are eas-
ier to generate at the nanoscale level makes this clock system a strong
candidate as the final and effective clocking mechanism for this technol-
ogy. Another remarkable advantage of the proposed solution resides in
its compatibility with currently available technology.

1 Introduction on Clocking For NML Logic

Recent years have shown a rapidly rising interest in field-coupled technologies,
like Quantum dot Cellular Automata (QCA) [ 1 ]. In these devices information
is not represented using voltage or current values, but rather with identical
cells that can assume different charge configurations [ 2 ]. Information propagates
therefore through the electrostatic interaction among neighbor cells [ 3 ]. Different
means can be used to map the QCA theoretical principle on practical applica-
tion. This can be obtained choosing appropriate materials and structures to
implement the basic cells needed in this technology, leading to different types of
QCA, like metallic QCA [ 3 ], semiconductor QCA [ 4 ] or molecular QCA [ 5 - 7 ].
Metallic QCA were the first practical implementation of the QCA principle, but