Simulation and analysis of clocking and control for field-coupled quantum-dot nanostructures
department or school: Applied Science, Faculty of
department or school: Electrical and Computer Engineering, Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Chiu, Hsi Nien
issued: 2021-04-30T07:00:00Z
issued: 2020
related degree: Master of Applied Science - MASc
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: Novel advancements in silicon dangling bond (SiDB) fabrication has led to logical circuitry at the atomic scale, with crucial building blocks including binary wires and logic gates experimentally demonstrated on the SiDB platform. However, complex SiDB circuitry will require clocking control for signal propagation and timing. This work proposes the use of control and clocking electrodes commonly presented in quantum-dot cellular automata (QCA) implementations for the SiDB platform and introduces PoisSolver, a simulation engine used to obtain clocking potentials in a SiDB system with complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) metal layers. PoisSolver is built into the SiQAD computer aided design (CAD) tool, aiding circuit design by visualising electric potentials and providing potential solutions to other built-in SiQAD simulation engines. Utilising PoisSolver’s output and the electrode design in SiQAD, geometry agnostic methods are employed to estimate power characteristics for QCA’s columnar, wave, and USE clocking schemes. Parasitic power densities of these clocking schemes are estimated to be on the order of 10-100μW cm⁻² at 1GHz and 77K. The potentially low power dissipation of SiDBs is extremely attractive for low power applications. As a result, a novel CMOS-to-SiDB flash analog-to-digital converter (ADC) proof-of-concept is designed using PoisSolver and SiQAD as a case study. A 2-bit implementation of the flash ADC is estimated to perform on par with thermal-noise limited CMOS ADCs in the worst case, and approximately four orders of magnitude better in the best case, depending on the elasticity of SiDB relaxations.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/74116
note: Simulation and Analysis of Clocking and Control forField-Coupled Quantum-Dot NanostructuresbyHsi Nien ChiuB. Applied Science, The University of British Columbia, 2017A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENTOF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OFMaster of Applied ScienceinTHE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORALSTUDIES(Electrical and Computer Engineering)The University of British Columbia(Vancouver)April 2020c© Hsi Nien Chiu, 2020The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Fac-ulty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the thesis entitled:Simulation and Analysis of Clocking and Control for Field-CoupledQuantum-Dot Nanostructuressubmitted by Hsi Nien Chiu in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the de-gree of Master of Applied Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering.Examining Committee:Konrad Walus, Electrical and Computer EngineeringSupervisorJoe Salfi, Electrical and Computer EngineeringSupervisory Committee MemberiiAbstractNovel advancements in silicon dangling bond (SiDB) fabrication has led to log-ical circuitry at the atomic scale, with crucial building blocks including binarywires and logic gates experimentally demonstrated on the SiDB platform. How-ever, complex SiDB circuitry will require clocking control for signal propagationand timing. This work proposes the use of control and clocking electrodes com-monly presented in quantum-dot cellular automata (QCA) implementations forthe SiDB platform and introduces PoisSolver, a simulation engine used to obtainclocking potentials in a SiDB system with complementary metal-oxide semicon-ductor (CMOS) metal layers. PoisSolver is built into the SiQAD computer aideddesign (CAD) tool, aiding circuit design by visualising electric potentials and pro-viding potential solutions to other built-in SiQAD simulation engines. UtilisingPoisSolver’s output and the electrode design in SiQAD, geometry agnostic meth-ods are employed to estimate power characteristics for QCA’s…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2020-05
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0389918
language: eng
degree discipline: Electrical Engineering
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/74116