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IEICE Electronics Express

Advancement of superconductor digital electronics

Akira Fujimaki

Published Jan 1, 2012• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Advancement of superconductor digital electronics, especially Rapid Single Flux Quantum (RSFQ) logic circuit is described. Ultra short pulse of a voltage generated across a Josephson junction and release from charging/discharging process for signal transmission in RSFQ circuits enable us to reduce power consumption and gate delay. The power-delay products (PDPs) of RSFQ integrated circuits (ICs) are 4 or 5 orders of magnitude smaller than those of semiconductor ICs. The fabrication process technology and the related designing technology have been advanced, and RSFQ ICs have been applied to software-defined radio receivers, superconductor detector array systems, and supercomputers. Recently, several kinds of energy-efficient single flux quantum circuit have been proposed to obtain further advantage to semiconductor devices. The PDPs of these circuits become at least 1 order smaller than those of conventional RSFQ circuits.

DOI
10.1587/elex.9.1720

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Advancement of superconductor digital electronics, especially Rapid Single Flux Quantum (RSFQ) logic circuit is described. Ultra short pulse of a voltage generated across a Josephson junction and release from charging/discharging process for signal transmission in RSFQ circuits enable us to reduce power consumption and gate delay. The power-delay products (PDPs) of RSFQ integrated circuits (ICs) are 4 or 5 orders of magnitude smaller than those of semiconductor ICs. The fabrication process technology and the related designing technology have been advanced, and RSFQ ICs have been applied to software-defined radio receivers, superconductor detector array systems, and supercomputers. Recently, several kinds of energy-efficient single flux quantum circuit have been proposed to obtain further advantage to semiconductor devices. The PDPs of these circuits become at least 1 order smaller than those of conventional RSFQ circuits.
Key digital circuits for signal processing with tens of gigahertz speed and a few microwatts power dissipation have been recently demonstrated using a simple, 2 /spl mu/m linewidth process. These are the fastest digital circuits reported to date. These circuits use novel rapid single flux quantum (RSFQ) technology that takes advantage of the fundamental properties of superconductivity. In this technology, data and clock are picosecond-long quantized voltage pulses corresponding to the transfer of single magnetic flux quanta, /spl Phisub 0/=h/2e=2 mVps. These SFQ pulses are regenerated at each gate and are processed by circuits comprised of overdamped Josephson junctions interconnected via microstrip inductances. The inherent internal memory of all RSFQ gates (primarily flip-flops), combined with high switching speed, makes serial, bit-pipelined circuit design advantageous. This paper presents experiments in RSFQ digital circuits, including an N/spl times/8b serial multiplier, and on-chip test systems based on RSFQ shift registers and on SFQ samplers. They enable test and study of RSFQ circuits at full GHz speed while communicating with semiconductor electronics at low speed.>
Superconductive Rapid Single Flux Quantum (RSFQ) logic and memory, in which ones and zeros are represented by the presence or absence within a timing window of quantized picosecond voltage pulse (/spl int/v(t)dt=h/2e=2.07 mV/spl middot/ps), corresponding to one SFQ, can be integrated into a digital computing system with an operating rate of several tens of GHz, based on the present Nb Josephson junction integrated circuit technology. It is the most promising technology beyond semiconductor transistors for low-power high-end computation. However, as the operating speed of circuits and systems increase, timing uncertainty from fabrication process variations makes global synchronization very hard. In this paper, we present a globally asynchronous, locally synchronous timing methodology for RSFQ digital design, which can solve the global synchronization problem. We also demonstrate the recent experimental results of some asynchronous circuits and systems implemented in RSFQ technology. Several key components such as a self-timed shift register, a self-timed demultiplexor, a Muller-C element, a completion detector, and a clock generator have been designed and tested. High speed operation has been confirmed up to 20 Gb/s for a prototype data buffer system, which consists two self-timed shift registers and an on-chip 5-38 GHz clock generator.
The Rapid Single-Flux-Quantum logic (RSFQ) presents an efficient way to achieve ultra fast digital operations. This logic uses the macroscopic effects which can be found in nano-structured superconductor devices such as the Josephson AC and DC effects, and the magnetic flux quantization. As the typical time of the Josephson junction quantized phase leap 2π is in the order of picoseconds, the RSFQ circuits can operate with clock frequencies in the order of hundreds of GHz. This invited paper focuses on basic principles of superconducting RSFQ logic as well as on typical applications, such as the signal conversion or petaflops computing systems. In addition we point out the benefits of the semi-metallic NbN-TaxN-NbN Josephson junction technology, which has been developed at CEA-INAC in Grenoble.
In the shadow of high-temperature superconductivity, 35 years of research in low-temperature superconductor ICs quietly comes to fruition, yielding the world's fastest circuits. They are made with a superconducting metal, niobium, rather than a compound semiconductor. Their exotic technology is based on Josephson junction devices and the transmission of single quanta of magnetic flux along superconductor interconnects. This paper describes these ICs and also a logic family called rapid single flux quantum (RSFQ) logic, which is based on the storage and transmission of quanta of magnetic flux.
The article describes the activities aimed at bringing superconductive high-speed electronics towards maturity.Integrated circuits based on the effects in superconducting materials have become feasible for some years already.The main focus lies on the so-called Rapid Single-Flux-Quantum (RSFQ) electronics which allows the combination of high operation frequencies (well above 20 GHz) with very low energy consumption when logical states are changed.Thus, this circuit technology exhibits a promising potential for realising energy-efficient modules for signal processing and computing.Recently, a dedicated design infrastructure has been developed in Europe.Closely associated is a foundry for digital RSFQ integrated circuits so that the fabrication of integrated circuits is viable.In the contribution, the basic features of the RSFQ circuit design are addressed with special emphasis on implementation on the wafer scale.