• Proceedings of the Korea Institute of Applied Superconductivity and Cryogenics Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.127-130
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• 2003

An RSFQ (Rapid Single Flux Quantum) counter can be used as a frequency divider that was an essential part of a programmable voltage standard chip. The voltage standard chip is composed of two circuit parts, a counter and an antenna Analog signal of tens to hundreds ㎓ may be applied to a finline antenna part. This analog signal can be converted to the stream of SFQ voltage pulses by a DC/SFQ circuit. The number of voltage pulses can be reduced by 2n times when they pass through a counter that is composed of n T Flip-Flops (Toggle Flip-Flop). Such a counter can be used not only as a frequency divider, but also to build a programmable voltage standard chip. So, its application range can be telecommunication, high speed RAM, microprocessor, etc. In this work, we have used Xic, WRspice, and L-meter to design an RSFQ counter. After circuit optimization, we could obtain the bias current margins of the T Flip-Flop circuit to be above 31％ Our RSFQ counter circuit designs were based on the 1 ㎄/$\textrm{cm}^2$ niobium trilayer technology.

• Progress in Superconductivity
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.7-12
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• 2004

Due to the very fast switching speed of Josephson junctions, superconductive digital circuit has been a very good candidate fur future electronic devices. High-speed and Low-power microprocessor can be developed with Josephson junctions. As a part of an effort to develop superconductive microprocessor, we have designed an RSFQ 4-bit ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit) in a pipelined structure. To make the circuit work faster, we used a forward clocking scheme. This required a careful design of timing between clock and data pulses in ALU. The RSFQ 1-bit block of ALU used in this work consisted of three DC current driven SFQ switches and a half-adder. We successfully tested the half adder cell at clock frequency up to 20 GHz. The switches were commutating output ports of the half adder to produce AND, OR, XOR, or ADD functions. For a high-speed test, we attached switches at the input ports to control the high-speed input data by low-frequency pattern generators. The output in this measurement was an eye-diagram. Using this setup, 1-bit block of ALU was successfully tested up to 40 GHz. An RSFQ 4-bit ALU was fabricated and tested. The circuit worked at 5 GHz. The circuit size of the 4-bit ALU was 3 mm ${\times}$ 1.5 mm, fitting in a 5 mm ${\times}$ 5 mm chip.

• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.9-12
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• 2005

We have constructed an RSFQ 4-bit Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) in a pipelined structure. An ALU is a core element of a computer processor that performs arithmetic and logic operation on the operands in computer instruction words. We have simulated the circuit by using Josephson circuit simulation tools. We used simulation tools of XIC, $WRspice^{TM}$, and Julia. To make the circuit work faster, we used a forward clocking scheme. This required a careful design of timing between clock and data pulses in ALU. The RSFQ 1-bit block of ALU used in constructing the 4-bit ALU was consisted of three DC current driven SFQ switches and a half-adder. By commutating output ports of the half adder, we could produce AND, OR, XOR, or ADD functions. The circuit size of the 4-bit ALU when fabricated was 3 mm x 1.5 mm, fitting in a 5 mm x 5mm chip. The fabricated 4-bit ALU operated correctly at 5 GHz clock frequency. The chip was tested at the liquid-helium temperature.