Can we go towards true 3-D architectures?

Thanks to recent technology advances, the exploration of the vertical dimension has been shown to be more than a dream for designers. Among those technologies, the vertical transistor has not been exploited yet. This paper describes a novel implementation of logic gates fully benefiting of nanowire-based vertical transistors embedded within the metal lines. The logic design in this technology is explored and its performance is evaluated. A comparison made on an equivalent technology node shows that our cells reduce area and delay by a factor of 31x and 2x respectively. Large reconfigurable logic circuits have been benchmarked showing an improvement of area and delay by 46% and 48% on average.