Design of New Logic Architectures Utilizing Optimized Suspended-Gate Single-Electron Transistors

The operation and performances of the suspended-gate single-electron transistor (SET) are investigated through simulation. The movable gate is 3-D optimized, so that low actuation voltage (0.4 V), fast switching (1 ns), and ultralow pull-in energy (0.015 fJ) are simulated. A two-state capacitor model based on the 3-D results is then embedded with a SET analytical model in a SPICE environment to investigate the operation of the device. Through the control of the Coulomb oscillation characteristics, the position of the movable gate enables a background charge insensitive coding of the information. New circuit architectures with applications in cellular nonlinear network and pattern matching are also proposed and simulated.