Single Electron Encoded Latches and Flip-Flops

Abstract

Single electron tunneling (SET) technology offers the ability to control the transport of individual electrons. In this paper, we investigate single electron encoded logic (SEEL) memory circuits, in which the Boolean logic values are encoded as zero or one electron charges. More specifically, we focus on the implementation of SEEL latches and flip-flops. All proposed circuits are verified by means of simulation using the SIMulation Of Nanostructures package. We first present a generic SEEL linear threshold gate implementation, from which we derive a family of Boolean logic gates. Second, we propose Boolean gate-based implementations of the RS latch, the D latch, and D flip-flop. Third, we propose threshold gate-based implementations of the same memory elements. Finally, we discuss the estimated area, delay, and power consumption of the Boolean gate-based and threshold gate-based implementations, and compare them with other SET-based memory elements.