Adiabatic Capacitive Logic using Voltage-controlled Variable Capacitors

Reversible computing is a promising approach to energy efficient computing that reduces heat generation by introducing a trade-off between energy and speed. The most developed approach to reversible computing is adiabatic CMOS, but its lowest energy dissipation is still limited by passive power, the energy wasted due to leakage current caused simply by applying a voltage to the circuit. A new approach, Adiabatic Capacitive Logic (ACL), implements reversible computing by using variable capacitors as pull-up and pull-down networks. ACL eliminates leakage current and therefore is not limited by passive power. We present the design and proposed nanofabrication of gap-closing voltage-controlled variable capacitors to implement ACL as a future computing approach.