A New Design Approach for High-Throughput Arithmetic Circuits for Single-Flux-Quantum Microprocessors

We propose a new design approach for high- throughput arithmetic circuits based on state transitions using single-flux-quantum (SFQ) logic circuits. Microprocessors have several complex interconnects in datapath including loops of data, to which only one SFQ pulse is allowed to be confined, and the loops can spoil the high-throughput nature of SFQ circuits. In our new approach, we regard an arithmetic circuit with loops as a sequential logic circuit, and we use nondestructive readout gates (NDROs) as storage elements of the internal state. We can eliminate the loops and achieve high throughput by translating calculations into transitions of the state stored in the NDROs. We have implemented a bit-serial adder with the proposed approach, and demonstrated 36-GHz operations using the niobium 2.5-kA/cm
²
standard process technology.