Low power dissipation MOS ternary logic family

An MOS ternary-logic family comprising a set of inverters, NOR gates, and NAND gates is proposed. These gates are used to design basic ternary arithmetic and memory circuits. The circuits thus obtained are then used to synthesize complex ternary arithmetic circuits and shift registers. The ternary circuits developed are shown to have some significant advantages relative to other known ternary circuits; these include low power dissipation and reduced propagation delay and component count. For a given dynamic range, the complexity of the new ternary circuits is shown to be comparable to that of corresponding binary circuits. Nevertheless, the associated reduction in the wordlength in the case of the ternary circuits tends to alleviate to a large extent the pin limitation problem associated with VLSI implementation. The authors conclude with an implementation of the cyclic convolution, an application in which a significant advantage can be gained through the use of ternary digital hardware.