FPCNA: a field programmable carbon nanotube array

ABSTRACT

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs), with their unique electronic properties, are promising materials for building nanoscale circuits. In this paper, we present a new CNT-based FPGA architecture known as FPCNA. We define novel CNT and nanoswitch based components and characterize these components considering nano-specific process variations, including the variation caused by the random mixture of metallic and semiconducting CNTs. To evaluate the architecture, we develop a variation-aware physical-design flow which can handle both Gaussian and non-Gaussian random variables using variation-aware placement and routing. When FPCNA is evaluated with this CAD flow, we see a 2.67× performance gain over a baseline CMOS FPGA at the same technology node (at a 95% performance yield). In addition, FPCNA offers a 4.5× footprint reduction compared to the baseline FPGA. These results demonstrate the potential of using CNTs and nanoswitches to build high performance FPGA circuits.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  B. Hardware
  B.7 INTEGRATED CIRCUITS
      B.7.1 Types and Design Styles
          Subjects: Gate arrays

Additional Classification:
  B. Hardware
  B.7 INTEGRATED CIRCUITS
      B.7.1 Types and Design Styles
          Subjects: Advanced technologies
      B.7.2 Design Aids
          Subjects: Placement and routing

General Terms:
Algorithms, Design, Experimentation, Performance

Keywords:
cnt-based lut, discretized ssta, fpga, nanoelectronics, variation aware cad