A conventional design and simulation for CLB implementation of an FPGA quantum-dot cellular automata

Quantum-dot cellular automata (QCA) are promising models in nanotechnology based on the single electron effects of quantum dots and molecules. The present study designs and simulates the elements and principal standard configurable logic block (CLB) of a Xilinx field programmable gate array (FPGA). All components of the CLB are investigated for missing cells and possible defects. A look-up table (LUT) with a novel structure is implemented as frequently as the read/write operation occurs to act as a pipeline. A 2-to-4 decoder with a memory cell structure in QCA is used to present an 8-bit LUT. The structure of the 8-bit LUT is extendable to 16 bit, 32 bit and higher. The proposed design and simulation of a new multiplexer based on QCA with minimum delay, area and complexity is presented to implement a programmable switch. QCADesigner software is used to create a detailed layout and for circuit simulation. The proposed CLB is also simulated using QCADesigner. Results show that the proposed CLB performs the task with minimum clocking and can be configured as a FPGA. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.