complementary nano-electromechanical switches for ultra-low power embedded processors
Idle power consumption is becoming an important parameter in portable embedded system design where excessive quiescent power dissipation can lead to excessive heat generation and reliability issues in nanometer-scale CMOS. To address some of these limitations, we have implemented a novel nano-electro-mechanical (NEM) switch with virtually zero leakage current, 1 Volt operation voltage, >1 GHZ fundamental resonant frequency, and nanometer-scale footprint. These NEM switches can be "dropped" in and hybridized with CMOS at the metallization or device levels to manage leakage current and power. Additionally, we introduce positive and negative channel switches in the form of complementary NEMS (CNEMS), similar to CMOS. CNEMS are compatible with CMOS in their functionality, structure and fabrication. Moreover, design methods, circuits, architectures and design automation techniques from CMOS can be readily used to realize CNEMS logic gates and processors. In this paper, we motivate the development of our NEM switch. We present NEMS characterizations, the construction of FET-like NEMs (CNEMS) switches and basic logic gates. We present simulation results showing CNEMS power dissipation improvement over nanometer-scale CMOS.
switch ultra-low power cmos nems device