Metrics for Emerging Digital Computing Technologies

Beyond-CMOS computing might involve new devices, circuits, and architectures. Determining which emerging or novel technologies are most promising and thus most deserving of development effort can be difficult, especially for... [ view full abstract ]

Beyond-CMOS computing might involve new devices, circuits, and architectures. Determining which emerging or novel technologies are most promising and thus most deserving of development effort can be difficult, especially for significantly non-conventional technologies. Needed are fair metrics and figures of merit for comparison. Nikonov and Young [1] have extended traditional energy-delay comparisons to include some state variables other than voltage (e.g., magnetization, polarization, spin current, orbital state) and have extended comparisons from switching devices alone to logic circuits as large as an arithmetic logic unit (ALU). Still, their approach is limited as computing also requires interconnects and memories, not just logic circuits. Proposed are methods for including energies and delays of key system components to more accurately predict the performance of complete digital computing systems based on emerging technologies. The method is applied superconducting digital computing technologies based on single flux quantum (SFQ) logic to demonstrate the ability to compare technologies with greater differences than was possible previously.
References:
[1] D. E. Nikonov and I. A. Young, “Benchmarking of Beyond-CMOS Exploratory Devices for Logic Integrated Circuits,” IEEE Journal on Exploratory Solid-State Computational Devices and Circuits, vol. 1, pp. 3–11, Dec. 2015. DOI: 10.1109/JXCDC.2015.2418033