A single-electron-transistor-based analog/digital converter

We propose a novel analog/digital (A/D) converter based on single-electron transistors (SETs) in this paper. In the proposed A/D converter, the core cell is a SET module, composed of capacitive dividers and SET-based universal literal gates. The SET-based universal literal gate is similar to the well-known Tucker's inverter (J.R. Tucker, J. Appl. Phys., vol. 72, no. 9, pp. 4399-4413, 1992), but here it acts as digital conversion and the inputs of upper-SET and lower-SET are two opposite voltages. In the SET-based universal literal gate, by adjusting the some parameters, the output having about 50% duty ratio of square-wave-like and zero-output for zero-input (in contrast, high-voltage output for zero-input in Tucker's inverter) is obtained, where we fully utilize the periodic oscillation of SETs on gate voltage (/spl I.bar/V/sub G/=e/C/sub G/). We demonstrate the basic function of a 4-bit SET-based A/D converter using the MOSES program developed by K.K. Likharev's group, which is based on the so-called orthodox theory and Monte Carlo method. The results may be easily extended to higher-bit A/D converters.