This letter describes a design methodology for an arithmetic logic unit (ALU) incorporating reconfigurability based on double-gate carbon nanotube field-effect transistors (DG-CNTFETs). The design of a DG-CNTFET with an ambipolar-property-based reconfigurable static logic circuit is simple and straightforward using an ambipolar binary decision diagram (Am-BDD), which represents the cornerstone for the automatic pass transistor logic (PTL) synthesis flows of ambipolar devices. In this work, an ALU with 16 functions is synthesized by the design methodology of a DG-CNTFET-based reconfigurable static logic circuit. Furthermore, it is shown that the proposed ALU is much more flexible and practical than a conventional DG-CNTFET-based reconfigurable ALU.

This letter describes the design methodology for reduced reconfigurable logic circuits based on double gate carbon nanotube field effect transistors (DG-CNTFETs) with ambipolar propoerty. Ambipolar Binary Decision Diagram (Am-BDD) which represents the cornerstone for automatic pass transistor logic (PTL) synthesis flows of ambipolar devices was utilized to build DG-CNTFET based n-input reconfigurable cells in the conventional approach. The proposed method can reduce the number of ambipolar devices for 2-inputs reconfigurable cells, incorporating the simple Boolean algebra in the Am-BDD compared with the conventional approach. As a result, the static 2-inputs reconfigurable circuit with 16 logic functions can be synthesized by using 8 DG-CNTFETs although the previous design method needed 12 DG-CNTFETs for the same purpose.

The holding voltage of high-voltage devices under the snapback breakdown condition has been known to be much smaller than the power supply voltage. Such characteristics cause high-voltage ICs to be susceptible to the transient latch-up failure in the practical system applications, especially when these devices are used as the ESD power clamp circuit. A new latchup-free design of the ESD power clamp circuit with stacked-bipolar devices is proposed and successfully verified in a 0.35 µm BCD (Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS) process to achieve the desired ESD level. The total holding voltage of the stacked-bipolar devices in the snapback breakdown condition can be larger than the power supply voltage.

We present a new apparent bandgap narrowing model for semiconductor device simulation. The new model is derived from revised data of previous measurements on the apparent bandgap narrowing by using a corrected intrinsic carrier concentration. The revised values reveal sufficient agreement with our theoretical calculation. The new model is implemented in a triangular mesh device simulator TRIMEDES. Simulated BJT current-voltage and current-temperature characteristics using the proposed model reveal excellent agreement with measurements.