Ultra-low-power carbon nanotube FET-based quaternary logic gates

This paper presents low-power carbon nanotube field-effect transistor (CNTFET)-based quaternary logic circuits. The proposed quaternary circuits are designed based on the CNTFET unique properties, such as the same carrier mobility for N- and P-type devices and also providing desirable threshold voltages by adopting proper diameters for the nanotubes. In addition, no paths exist between supply and ground rails in the steady states of the proposed designs, which eliminates the ON state static current and also the stacking technique is utilised in order to significantly reduce the leakage currents. The results of the simulations, conducted using Synopsys HSPICE with the standard 32 nm CNTFET technology, confirm the significantly lower power consumption, higher energy efficiency and lower sensitivity to process variation of the proposed designs compared to the state-of-the-art quaternary logic circuits. The proposed quaternary logic circuits have on average 92, 99 and 91% less total power, static power and PDP, respectively, compared with the most low-power and energy-efficient CNTFET-based quaternary logic circuits, recently presented in the literature.