A simple digital-to-analog conversion technique using single-electron transistor

A simple circuit structure implementing digital-to-analog data conversion function is presented. The proposed digital-to-analog converter utilizes the inherent characters of single-electron tunneling which consist of the periodic voltage oscillation and the ability of counting the number of trapped charges. It produces an analog output voltage for a given digital input. We proposed the device structure performing the weighted summation of inputs, which is converted into an analog voltage by the proposed sensing circuit. Monte Carlo simulation results give us the clear performance of the 3-bit digital-to-analog conversion function and the effect of temperature, capacitance variations, and background charge fluctuations. Moreover, we examined the possibility of extending a N-bit digital-to-analog converter with the proposed scheme.