Voltage Controlled Memristor Threshold Logic Gates, 2016 IEEE APCCAS, Jeju, Korea, October 25-28, 2016
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A. Maan, A. P. James, Voltage Controlled Memristor Threshold Logic Gates, 2016 IEEE APCCAS, Jeju, Korea, October 25-28, 2016 Voltage Controlled Memristor Threshold Logic Gates Akshay Kumar Maan Alex Pappachen James Queensland Microelectronic Facility School of Engineering, Nazabayev University Griffith University Astana, Kazakhastan Queensland 4111, Australia Web: www.biomicrosystems.info/alex Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Abstract—In this paper, we present a resistive switching weights to the inputs, while the CMOS inverter behaves as memristor cell for implementing universal logic gates. The cell a threshold logic device. The weights are programmed via has a weighted control input whose resistance is set based on a the resistive switching phenomenon of the memristor device. control signal that generalizes the operational regime from NAND We show that resistive switching makes it possible to use the to NOR functionality. We further show how threshold logic in same cell architecture to work in the NAND, NOR or XOR the voltage-controlled resistive cell can be used to implement a configuration, and can be implemented in a programmable XOR logic. Building on the same principle we implement a half adder and a 4-bit CLA (Carry Look-ahead Adder) and show array architecture. We hypothesise that if such circuits are that in comparison with CMOS-only logic, the proposed system developed in silicon that can be programmed and reused to shows significant improvements in terms of device area, power generate different logic gate functionalities, we will be able to dissipation and leakage power. move a step closer towards the development of low power and large scale threshold logic applications. I. INTRODUCTION A. Proposed Logic The discovery of the physical memristor, the fourth basic circuit element, as theorised by Leon Chua in 1971 [1], by Hewlett-Packard Laboratories [2], has refocussed the research on memristive systems. The memristor device exhibits a re- sistive switching phenomenon in which a dielectric suddenly changes its (two terminal) resistance under the action of a strong electric field or current. Since the change in resistance is non-volatile and reversible, applications containing such devices lay within memory and computing applications [3]– [6]. The circuits that are inspired from firing of neurons and weighted inputs referred to as threshold logic can be imple- mented with memristors due to their varied resistive states that Fig. 1. Resistive memory threshold logic cell circuit consisting of resistance are useful as weights. There are, in general, several challenges switching devices R1, R2 and Rc, and a CMOS inverter to threshold logic implementation in silicon, including a lim- ited number of inputs per gate, limited generalization of the In the proposed logic, we first design a threshold logic cell, and difficulties with integration with conventional logic based cell that will act as a NOR or NAND gate based on V families [7]. Recent developments in memristor technology [1] a preset control voltage C (Fig. 1). This cell forms the unit which, along with the resistive switching property of the have stimulated renewed interest in using switching devices for R R R developing threshold logic gates. However, although these have memristors ( 1, 2, C ) involved, can be used to design smaller chip areas and lower leakage power than conventional an entire logic family of gates. We call it resistive switching threshold logic and use it to design an XOR gate and larger CMOS logic gates, they often have higher power dissipation for threshold logic gates. XOR circuits: a full adder and a 4-bit Carry Look-ahead Adder (LCA). Figure 1 shows the design of the proposed memory The key element of the proposed CMOS inverter/memristor threshold logic cell that utilizes two input memristors R1 and circuits is a memristive [1], [8], [9] device that exhibits R2, connected to the inputs V1 and V2, respectively. In general, resistance-switching [10], [11], [12], [13]. We propose a Vi is the input voltage corresponding to ith input terminal, memristor-based resistive threshold logic gate family that where i can have values 1, 2, 3, . , N . The control voltage progresses from previous work [3] on memristive gates with Vc connected to resistor Rc is used to program the gate to respect to the simplified cell structure with the ability to NAND, NOR or XOR functionality. In case of a 2-terminal control the gate operations through external input control cell in-order to get the NOR functionality the control voltage signals. This strategy is inspired from the cognitive ability Vc should be greater than 0.5 V (logic 1) and for NAND gate of human brain which results from the brain’s ability to it should be below 0.5 V (logic 0), if the input voltage values program and reuse similar neural structures through formation are 0V and 1V for low and high voltage levels. In order to get of appropriate neural networks. In the proposed design, the the XOR functionality, Vc should be the NOR output of inputs resistive switching devices [14], are used as programmable V1 and V2. For NAND and NOR the input resistance is set as R1 = R2 = Rc = R, while for XOR configuration Rc changes according to the control voltage Vc. The CMOS inverter, with an inverter threshold Vth, is used to convert the Vo voltage to the binary state Vout, reflective of the gate operation. All voltages share a common ground. B. Threshold Logic A linear threshold logic gate (LTG) has the following transfer function: . n 1 if Σ wixi >= T f (x1, ..., xn) = i=1 (1) 0 otherwise where xi is a Boolean input variable, wi is an integer weight of the corresponding input i, and the threshold T Fig. 2. Spice simulation result shows the switching of resistance state of the memristor when voltages V1&V2 applied across it is an integer number. In the proposed design we implement the weights wi using the resistive switching property of the TABLE I. TRUTH TABLE FOR NAND AND NOR OPERATION BASED memristor device, xi are the inputs available to the gates and CONTROL VOLTAGE Vc the threshold T is implemented using a CMOS inverter [8]. V1 V2 Vc Rc Vo Vout NAND NOR Vc = Vc = Vc = Vc = NAND NOR C. Memristor 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 RH RH 0 < 1 1 On applying an initial threshold voltage memristive devices 0.5 0 1 0 1 RH RH < > 1 0 are brought into ON state upon which they show linear 0.5 0.5 conductance with a configurable slope 1/R [8]. Thus they 1 0 0 1 RH RH < > 1 0 are especially suitable for implementing weights in the pro- 0.5 0.5 1 1 0 1 RH RH > > 0 0 posed threshold logic circuits. The memristor model used for 0.5 0.5 simulation is the spice model that was proposed by [15]. This 6 device has a large ROFF /RON ratio (10 ) while still retaining ns a relatively low switching time (about 10 ). V2 + Vc)/3. While the threshold operation using the inverter From Figure 2 we can see that when voltages 3.5V and can be represented as: . −3.5V are applied across the positive and negative terminals 1 if Vo < V of the memristor, we get a high resistance state (which we Vout = th (3) denote with RH ) and if the reverse voltages (−3.5V and 3.5V ) 0 otherwise are applied across its positive and negative terminals, we get low resistance state (which we denote with R ). This voltage L As shown in Table I NAND logic is achieved when the levels, +/−3.5V , are used to set high and low resistance states control voltage V is logic 0 and NOR logic is obtained when of memristor and are represented as +/ − V , the training c TR the control voltage V is logic 1. voltage [7]. If we use any voltage in between the training c voltages the resistance state of the memristor will not change. Hence we can use these voltage levels for the working of the E. XOR Threshold Logic cell and will refer to them as the testing voltage VTE which can be 1V for logic high and 0V for logic low. Figure 3 shows the XOR configuration of resistive memory threshold logic. In order to get the XOR configuration resistors R R R R D. NAND/NOR Threshold Logic 1 and 2 should be at high resistive state H and c should change its resistance according to the control voltage Vc based From Figure 1, the output voltage of the N input resistive on Eq. 4. divider circuit is given by: . Vc/Rc + Vi/Ri Vo = . (2) 1/Ri + 1/Rc For NAND, NOR and XOR operation we keep the re- sistances of the inputs to a high resistance RH state. For NAND/NOR operation, Rc also remains at high resistance. To configure the circuit as NAND gate the control voltage Vc is logic high, whereas for NOR functionality it is logic low. Since for NAND and NOR configuration all resistors are kept equal, for a 2 input cell Eq. 2 changes to: Vo = (V1 + Fig. 3. XOR configuration of resistive memory threshold logic. TABLE II. TRUTH TABLE FOR XOR OPERATION BASED CONTROL VOLTAGE Vc AND CORRESPONDING CHANGE IN Rc . HERE Vc IS THE NORED OUTPUT OF V1 AND V2 V1 V2 Vc Rc Vo Vout 0 0 1 RL > 0.5 0 0 1 0 RH < 0.5 1 1 0 0 RH < 0.5 1 1 1 0 RH > 0.5 0 Fig. 5. Timing diagram showing the NAND/NOR operation of the proposed memristor threshold logic.