The ternary quantum-dot cell and ternary logic

Abstract

Quantum-Dot Cellular Automata (QCAs) are becoming more and more one of the most promising candidates for the alternative processing platform of the future. Since their advent in the early 1990s the required technological processes, as well as the QCA structures that implement the basic and functionally complete set of binary logic functions, have been developed. This article, however, presents an extension of the (standard) binary quantum-dot cell that is focused on the enrichment of the cell's processing capabilities. It is shown that the newly introduced ternary quantum-dot cell can be used to represent three logic values and that only minor modifications of the corresponding binary QCA structures are required to implement the functionally complete set of Lukasiewicz ternary logic functions.