Reduced Power Consumption in Superconducting Electronics

Rapid single flux quantum (RSFQ) electronics is based on the Josephson junction as an active switching element. In standard RSFQ circuits its switching energy is much lower than the static power consumption caused by the resistive current distribution network. Due to this thermal heating of the chip...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on applied superconductivity 2011-06, Vol.21 (3), p.770-775
Main Authors: Ortlepp, T, Wetzstein, O, Engert, S, Kunert, J, Toepfer, H
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied sciences
Chips
Circuit properties
Circuits
Clocks
Critical current
Design. Technologies. Operation analysis. Testing
Digital circuits
Electric, optical and optoelectronic circuits
Electrical engineering. Electrical power engineering
Electromagnets
Electronic circuits
Electronics
Exact sciences and technology
Inductance
Integrated circuits
Josephson junction
Josephson junctions
Junctions
magnetic field sensors
Networks
Power consumption
Power demand
RSFQ
Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices
Superconducting devices
superconducting electronics
Superconductors
Switches
Switching
Switching theory
Various equipment and components
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Summary:Rapid single flux quantum (RSFQ) electronics is based on the Josephson junction as an active switching element. In standard RSFQ circuits its switching energy is much lower than the static power consumption caused by the resistive current distribution network. Due to this thermal heating of the chip, the maximum number of junctions on a single chip is limited to about 1 million. The frequency-dependent contribution to power dissipation from junction switchings is only about 2 percent of the static one. This fact limits the direct construction of VLSI systems for high-performance computing as well as small-scale circuit applications in the vicinity of ultra-sensitive detectors or even quantum circuits. We present an assessment of different approaches for reducing the static power consumption by investigating the potential of inductive bias distribution networks as well as reduced critical currents. We analyse the operation stability of simple digital circuits with 5 times smaller critical currents at 4.2 K. The combination of the reduced critical currents and inductive biasing can provide digital superconductive circuits with significantly reduced static power consumption.
ISSN:1051-8223
1558-2515
DOI:10.1109/TASC.2011.2117410