Analyzing Energy-Delay Behavior in Room Temperature Single Electron Transistors

This paper presents single electron transistor (SET) devices operating at room temperature as an attractive option to implement low energy consumption circuits with low-to-moderate performance requirements. Currently, such circuits are implemented using CMOS technologies operating at low supply voltages. CMOS is usually leakage dominated at such a low voltage regime and various optimizations are necessary to design low energy circuits. By discussing the energy-delay trade-offs for SET devices and comparing them to those of contemporary CMOS technology, we present an argument that SET devices may be more favorable compared to CMOS from the energy and delay standpoints at low supply voltages.