Deep-sub-voltage nanoelectronics

Deep-sub-voltage nanoelectronics are integrated circuits (ICs) operating near theoretical limit (fundamental, technological, design methodological, architectural, algorithmic) on energy consumption per 1 bit processing. New classes of applications such as wireless sensor networks or microsystems have dramatically different requirements from traditional nanoelectronics (logically irreversible manipulation of information) where performance (i.e., frequency) is primary metric of interest. For new devices, energy per instruction may be a more sensible metric.

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The tiny autonomous devices (smartdust or autonomous MEMS as examples) on the basis of deep-sub-voltage nanoelectronics will require much increase of capacity density as in capacitors the energy depends quadratically from voltage [1].

The important case of fundamental ultimate limit for logic operation is the reversible computing.

References

• Meindl J. Low power microelectronics: retrospect and prospect. Proc. IEEE 1995. V.83. NO.4. P.619-635.

• Frank M.P. Reversible computing and truly adiabatic circuits: The next great challenge for digital engineering.

http://www.eng.fsu.edu/~mpf/IEEE-Dallas-talk.ppt

• Meindl J., Davis J. The fundamental limit on binary switching energy for terascale integration (TSI). IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, 2000. V.35. NO.10. P.1515-1516.

• Itoh K. Ultra-low voltage nano-scale memories. Springer. 2007.

• Silvester D. IC design Strategies at ultra-low voltages [2]

• Cavin R. K., Zhirnov V. V., Herr D. J. C., Avila A., Hutchby J. Research directions and challenges in nanoelectronics. Journal of Nanoparticle Research, 2006 V.8. P.841–858.

• Hanson S., Zhai B., Bernstein K., Blaauw D., Bryant A., Chang L., Das K. K., Haensch W., Nowak E. J., Sylvester D. M. Ultra-low-voltage, minimum-energy CMOS. IBM J. RES. & DEV. 2006. V. 50. NO. 4/5. P. 469-490.

• Alexander Despotuli, Alexandra Andreeva. High-capacity capacitors for 0.5 voltage nanoelectronics of the future. Modern Electronics № 7, 2007, P. 24-29 [3]