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This paper presents the first experimental demonstration of a ternary memristor-CMOS logic family. We systematically design, simulate and experimentally verify the primitive logic functions: the ternary AND, OR and NOT gates. These are then used to build combinational ternary NAND, NOR, XOR and XNOR gates, as well as data handling ternary MAX and MIN gates. Our simulations are performed using a 50-nm process which are verified with in-house fabricated indium-tin-oxide memristors, optimized for fast switching, high transconductance, and low current leakage. We obtain close to an order of magnitude improvement in data density over conventional CMOS logic, and a reduction of switching speed by a factor of 13 over prior state-of-the-art ternary memristor results. We anticipate extensions of this work can realize practical implementation where high data density is of critical importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The search for a compatible application of memristor-CMOS logic gates has remained elusive, as the data density benefits are offset by slow switching speeds and resistive dissipation. Active microdisplays typically prioritize pixel density (and therefore resolution) over that of speed, where the most widely used refresh rates fall between 25–240 Hz. Therefore, memristor-CMOS logic is a promising fit for peripheral I/O logic in active matrix displays. In this paper, we design and implement a ternary 1–3 line decoder and a ternary 2–9 line decoder which are used to program a seven segment LED display. SPICE simulations are conducted in a 50-nm process, and the decoders are synthesized on an Altera Cyclone IV field-programmable gate array (FPGA) development board which implements a ternary memristor model designed in Quartus II. Our approach to logic synthesis demonstrates a potential way forward for simulating large-scale memristor-CMOS circuits without embedded RRAM for functional verification, and our SPICE results show an improvement in data density of a variety of decoders by a factor between 3.6-8.5. While the switching speed of memristors are one of several bottlenecks to using them in combinational logic, the comparatively slow refresh rates of typical microdisplays indicate this to be a tolerable trade-off, which promotes data density over speed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]