This paper presents new Binary Converters (or current-mode compressors) by the usage of carbon nanotube field effect transistors. The new designs are made of three parts: 1) the input currents which are converted to voltage; 2) threshold detectors; and 3) the output current flow paths. In addition, an 8×8-bit multiplier is considered as a bench mark to estimate their efficiency degrees. The first approach is based on high-order Binary Converters, and the second one is only composed of 4BCs and Half Adders.

This paper presents a fine-grain bit-serial reconfigurable VLSI architecture using multiple-valued switch blocks and binary logic modules. Multiple-valued signaling is utilized to implement a compact switch block. A binary-controlled current-steering technique is introduced, utilizing a programmable three-level differential-pair circuit to implement a high-performance low-power arbitrary two-variable binary function, and increase the noise margins in comparison with the quaternary-controlled differential-pair circuit. A current-source sharing technique between a series-gating differential-pair circuit and a current-mode D-latch is proposed to reduce the current source count and improve the speed. It is demonstrated that the power consumption and the delay of the proposed multiple-valued cell based on the binary-controlled current-steering technique and the current-source-sharing technique are reduced to 63% and 72%, respectively, in comparison with those of a previous multiple-valued cell.

A multiple-valued data transfer scheme using X-net is proposed to realize a compact bit-serial reconfigurable VLSI (BS-RVLSI). In the multiple-valued data transfer scheme using X-net, two binary data can be transferred from two adjacent cells to one common adjacent cell simultaneously at each “X” intersection. One cell composed of a logic block and a switch block is connected to four adjacent cross points by four one-bit switches so that the complexity of the switch block is reduced to 50% in comparison with the cell of a BS-RVLSI using an eight nearest-neighbor mesh network (8-NNM). In the logic block, threshold logic circuits are used to perform threshold operations, and then their binary dual-rail voltage outputs enter a binary logic module which can be programmed to realize an arbitrary two-variable binary function or a bit-serial adder. As a result, the configuration memory count and transistor count of the proposed multiple-valued cell are reduced to 34% and 58%, respectively, in comparison with those of an equivalent CMOS cell. Moreover, its power consumption for an arbitrary 2-variable binary function becomes 67% at 800 MHz under the condition of the same delay time.

A fine-grain bit-serial multiple-valued reconfigurable VLSI based on logic-in-control architecture is proposed for effective use of the hardware resources. In logic-in-control architecture, the control circuits can be merged with the arithmetic/logic circuits, where the control and arithmetic/logic circuits are constructed by using one or multiple logic blocks. To implement the control circuit, only one state in a state transition diagram is allocated to one logic block, which leads to reduction of the complexity of interconnections between logic blocks. The fine-grain logic block is implemented based on multiple-valued current-mode circuit technology. In the fine-grain logic block, an arbitrary 3-variable binary function can be programmed by using one multiplexer and two universal literal circuits. Three-variable binary functions are used to implement the control circuit. Moreover, the hardware resources can be utilized to construct a bit-serial adder, because full-adder sum and carry can be realized by programming in the universal literal circuit. Therefore, the logic block can be effectively reconfigured for arithmetic/logic and control circuits. It is made clear that the hardware complexity of the control circuit in the proposed reconfigurable VLSI can be reduced in comparison with that of the control circuit based on a typically sequential circuit in the conventional FPGA and the fine-grain field-programmable VLSI reported until now.

In this paper, a design methodology for the minimization of various performance metrics of MOS Current-Mode Logic (MCML) circuits is described. In particular, it allows to minimize the delay under a given power consumption, the power consumption under a given delay and the power-delay product. Design solutions can be evaluated graphically or by simple and effective automatic procedures implemented within the MATLAB environment. The methodology exploits the novel concepts of crossing-point current and crossing-point capacitance. A useful feature of it is that it provides the designer with useful insights into the dependence of the performance metrics on design variables and fan-out capacitance. The methodology was validated by designing several MCML circuits in an IBM 130 nm CMOS process.

This paper proposes a design technique to reduce the power dissipation of CML driver for on-chip transmission-lines. CML drivers can operate at higher frequency than conventional static CMOS logic drivers. On the other hand, the power dissipation is larger than that of CMOS static logic drivers. The proposed method reduces the power dissipation by using an impedance-unmatched driver instead of the conventional impedance-matched driver. Measurement results show that the proposed method reduces the power dissipation by 32% compared with a conventional design at 12.5 Gbps.

A tunneling magnetoresistive(TMR)-based logic-in- memory circuit, where storage functions are distributed over a logic-circuit plane, is proposed for a low-power VLSI system. Since the TMR device is regarded as a variable resistor with a non-volatile storage capability, any logic functions with external inputs and stored inputs can be performed by using the TMR-based resistor/transistor network. The combination of dynamic current-mode circuitry and a TMR-based logic network makes it possible to perform any switching operations without steady current, which results in power saving. A design example of an SAD unit for MPEG encoding is discussed, and its advantages are demonstrated.