Modeling and Characterization of Metastability in Single Flux Quantum\n (SFQ) Synchronizers

2020/04/09 by Gourav Datta, Datta, Gourav, Peter A. Beerel +1
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Applied Physics (physics.app-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum and electron transport phenomena

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2004.04804

openalex publication_date 2020/04/09 · openalex created_date 2022/07/26 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Despite the promises of low-power and high-frequency of single-flux quantum\n(SFQ) technology, scaling these circuits remains a serious challenge that\nmotivates the support of multiple SFQ clock domains. Towards this end, this\npaper analyzes the impact of setup time violations and metastability in SFQ\ncircuits comparing the derived analytical models to their CMOS counterparts. It\nthen extends this model to estimate the Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) of\nflip-flop-based synchronizers and curve fits this model to simulations in the\nstate-of-the-art SFQ5ee process. Interestingly, we find a two-flop SFQ\nsynchronizer has an estimated MTBF of 10⁶ years.\n

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