Low-power multiplexer designs using three-independent-gate field effect transistors

Three-Independent-Gate Field Effect Transistors (TIGFETs) are capable of different modes of operation thanks to their additional gate terminals. By electrically controlling their side gates, TIGFETs can act either as a p-type or an n-type transistor and can also implement multi-threshold logic. This versatility can be used to create compact logic gates intended for high-performance or low-leakage applications. In today's Integrated Circuits (ICs), multiplexers are used in a broad range of applications such as encoding-decoding, routing signals or Look-Up Tables (LUTs). In particular, conventional Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS)-based multiplexers with a large number of inputs require several stages, leading to significant area and energy. Due to their three-gate terminals, TIGFETs can implement the equivalent multiplexers using less transistors, arranged in a compact way, reducing the area and energy. In this paper, we present novel two-level and tree-like multiplexer structures intended for low-power applications based on Silicon Nanowire TIGFETs (TIG SiNWFETs) and compare it with conventional CMOS FinFET Low-STandby Power (LSTP) structures. Using the 22nm technology node, electrical simulations show that our SiNWFET-based multiplexer can improve the energy by operation by 2 5× and Energy-Area Product by up to 2.6× compared to the best CMOS FinFET structures.