A functional MOS transistor is proposed which works more intelligently than a mere switching device. The functional transistor calculates the weighted sum of all input signals at the gate level, and controls the 'on' and 'off' of the transistor based on the result of such a weighted sum operation. Since the function is quite analogous to that of biological neurons, the device is named a neuron MOSFET, or neuMOS (vMOS). The device is composed of a floating gate and multiples of input gates that capacitively interact with the floating gate. As the gate-level sum operation is performed in a voltage mode utilizing the capacitive coupling effect, essentially no power dissipation occurs in the calculation, making the device ideal for ULSI implementation. The basic characteristics of neuron MOSFETs as well as of simple circuit blocks are analyzed based on a simple transistor model and experiments. Making use of its very powerful function, a number of interesting circuit applications are explored. A soft hardware logic circuit implemented by neuMOS transistors is also proposed. >

A functional MOS transistor featuring gate-level weighted sum and threshold operations

Many semiconductor quantum devices utilize a novel tunneling transport mechanism that allows picosecond device switching speeds The negative differential resistance characteristic of these devices, achieved due to resonant tunneling, is also ideally suited for the design of highly compact, self-latching logic circuits As a result, quantum device technology is a promising emerging alternative for high-performance very-large-scale-integration design The bistable nature of the basic logic gates implemented using resonant tunneling devices has been utilized in the development of a gate-level pipelining technique, called nanopipelining, that significantly improves the throughput and speed of pipelined systems The advent of multiple-peak resonant tunneling diodes provides a viable means for efficient design of multiple-valued circuits with decreased interconnect complexity and reduced device count as compared to multiple-valued circuits in conventional technologies This paper details various circuit design accomplishments in the area of binary and multiple-valued logic using resonant tunneling diodes (RTD's) in conjunction with high-performance III-V devices such as heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT's) and modulation doped field-effect transistors (MODFET's) New bistable logic families using RTD+HBT and RTD+MODFET gates are described that provide a single-gate, self-latching majority function in addition to basic NAND, NOR, and inverter gates

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Digital circuit applications of resonant tunneling devices

General-purpose computing devices allow us to (1) customize computation after fabrication and (2) conserve area by reusing expensive active circuitry for different functions in time. We define RP-space, a restricted domain of the general-purpose architectural space focussed on reconfigurable computing architectures. Two dominant features differentiate reconfigurable from special-purpose architectures and account for most of the area overhead associated with RP devices: (1) instructions which tell the device how to behave, and (2) flexible interconnect which supports task dependent dataflow between operations.
We can characterize RP-space by the allocation and structure of these resources and compare the efficiencies of architectural points across broad application characteristics. Conventional FPGAs fall at one extreme end of this space and their efficiency ranges over two orders of magnitude across the space of application characteristics. Understanding RP-space and its consequences allows us to pick the best architecture for a task and to search for more robust design points in the space.
Our DPGA, a fine-grained computing device which adds small, on-chip instruction memories to FPGAs is one such design point. For typical logic applications and finite-state machines, a DPGA can implement tasks in one-third the area of a traditional FPGA. TSFPGA, a variant of the DPGA which focuses on heavily time-switched interconnect, achieves circuit densities close to the DPGA, while reducing typical physical mapping times from hours to seconds.
Rigid, fabrication-time organization of instruction resources significantly narrows the range of efficiency for conventional architectures. To avoid this performance brittleness, we developed MATRIX, the first architecture to defer the binding of instruction resources until run-time, allowing the application to organize resources according to its needs. Our focus MATRIX design point is based on an array of 8-bit ALU and register-file building blocks interconnected via a byte-wide network. With today's silicon, a single chip MATRIX array can deliver over 10 Gop/s (8-bit ops). On sample image processing tasks, we show that MATRIX yields 10-20$\times$ the computational density of conventional processors.
Understanding the cost structure of RP-space helps us identify these intermediate architectural points and may provide useful insight more broadly in guiding our continual search for robust and efficient general-purpose computing structures. (Copies available exclusively from MIT Libraries, Rm. 14-0551, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307. Ph. 617-253-5668; Fax 617-253-1690.)

Reconfigurable Architectures for General-Purpose Computing

This tutorial places the developments and potential of multiple-valued signals and logic in the relevant context of binary and two-valued signals It covers: the role of multivalued logic (MVL) in the binary world; multivalued representation; binary-related radices; multivalued functions; storage techniques in MVL; and implementation issues An overview of applications is included >

A multiple valued logic: a tutorial and appreciation

Current-mode CMOS circuits are receiving increasing attention. Current-mode CMOS multiple-valued logic circuits are interesting and may have applications in digital signal processing and computing. In this paper we review several of the current-mode CMOS multiple-valued logic (MVL) circuits that we have studied over the past decade. These circuits include a simple current threshold comparator, current-mode MVL encoders and decoders, current-mode quaternary threshold logic full adders (QFAs), current-mode MVL latches, current-mode latched QFA circuits, and current-mode analog-to-quaternary converter circuits. Each of these circuits is presented and its performance described. >

Current-mode CMOS multiple-valued logic circuits

A 32*32-bit multiplier using multiple-valued current-mode circuits has been fabricated in 2- mu m CMOS technology. For the multiplier based on the radix-4 signed-digit number system, 32*32-bit two's complement multiplication can be performed with only three-stage signed-digit full adders using a binary-tree addition scheme. The chip contains about 23600 transistors and the effective multiplier size is about 3.2*5.2 mm/sup 2/, which is half that of the corresponding binary CMOS multiplier. The multiply time is less than 59 ns. The performance is considered comparable to that of the fastest binary multiplier reported. >

A 32*32-bit multiplier using multiple-valued MOS current-mode circuits

A pattern-matching procedure for performing four-valued image processing based on cellular logic operation is proposed, allowing two different templates to be processed simultaneously in a pipelined manner. Based on these double pattern-matching cells, a compact NMOS image-processing chip has been implemented. It is demonstrated that the compactness comes from reduced interconnections in the double pattern-matching cells using a quaternary multiplexer or T gates, realized with pass transistors and multiple ion implants.

Design and implementation of quaternary NMOS integrated circuits for pipelined image processing

Prospects of multiple-valued VLSI processors

A high-density NMOS logic array chip based on quaternary logic implemented for high-speed parallel pattern matching in a knowledge information processing system is described. The logic array can be exploited in real-time applications when the rules are fixed. Based on the appropriate quaternary coding for the contents of working memory and production memory, a double-pattern-matching algorithm for achieving a high-density chip is proposed. One of four states for 2-bit information concerning two elements of a rule is stored in a pattern-matching cell by multiple ion implants, so that the pattern-matching cell is implemented using only a single transistor. It is shown that the chip area for pattern matching is reduced by 30% compared with the corresponding binary logic array. >

Tatsuo Higuchi

Papers

A 32*32-bit multiplier using multiple-valued MOS current-mode circuits

Design and implementation of quaternary NMOS integrated circuits for pipelined image processing

Prospects of multiple-valued VLSI processors

High-density quaternary logic array chip for knowledge information processing systems

VLSI Computer for Robotics