Nanoelectromechanical digital logic circuits using curved cantilever switches with amorphous-carbon-coated contacts

Nanoelectromechanical (NEM) switches have the potential to complement or replace traditional CMOS transistors in the area of ultra-low-power digital electronics. This paper reports the demonstration of prototype circuits including the first 3-stage ring oscillator built using cell-level digital logi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Solid-state electronics 2015-11, Vol.113, p.157-166
Main Authors: Ayala, Christopher L., Grogg, Daniel, Bazigos, Antonios, Bleiker, Simon J., Fernandez-Bolaños, Montserrat, Niklaus, Frank, Hagleitner, Christoph
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amorphous carbon
Curved cantilever
Digital logic design
NEMS
Ring oscillator
VLSI
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Summary:Nanoelectromechanical (NEM) switches have the potential to complement or replace traditional CMOS transistors in the area of ultra-low-power digital electronics. This paper reports the demonstration of prototype circuits including the first 3-stage ring oscillator built using cell-level digital logic elements based on curved NEM switches. The ring oscillator core occupies an area of 30μm×10μm using 6 NEM switches. Each NEM switch device has a footprint of 5μm×3μm, an air gap of 60μm and is coated with amorphous carbon (a-C) for reliable operation. The ring oscillator operates at a frequency of 6.7MHz, and confirms the simulated inverter propagation delay of 25ns. The successful fabrication and measurement of this demonstrator are key milestones on the way towards an optimized, scaled technology with sub-nanosecond switching times, lower operating voltages and VLSI implementation.
ISSN:0038-1101
1879-2405
1879-2405
DOI:10.1016/j.sse.2015.05.029