A magnetoelectronic macrocell employing reconfigurable threshold logic

In this paper, we introduce a reconfigurable fabric based around a new class of circuit element: the hybrid Hall effect (HHE) magnetoelectronic device. Because they incorporate a ferromagnetic element, HHE devices are inherently non-volatile, retaining their state without a power supply. In addition, HHE devices are extremely well-suited to implementing threshold logic circuits, which allows many complex logic functions to be implemented in fewer gates than are required in systems based on AND-OR logic. We present the design of an HHE-based reconfigurable macrocell based on two-level threshold logic that can be configured on a cycle-by-cycle basis while internally storing non-volatile configuration data and computation state. The performance of this macrocell is characterized, and compared to that of competing technologies, showing that it has a significantly better power-delay product when implementing complex functions of many inputs. Categories and Subject Descriptors B.6.1 [Logic ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: FPGA
• Authors: Steve Ferrera, Nicholas P. Carter
• Keywords: FPGA 2004, Hardware, Threshold Logic, Threshold Logic Circuits, Two-level Threshold Logic