Single Flux Quantum Integrated Circuit Design

High efficiency, large scale, stationary computing systems – supercomputers and data centers – are becoming increasingly important due to the movement of data storage and processing onto remote cloud servers. This book is dedicated to a technology particularly appropriate for this application – superconductive electronics, in particular, rapid single flux quantum circuits. The primary purpose of this book is to introduce and systematize recent developments in superconductive electronics into a cohesive whole to support the further development of large scale computing systems.

A brief background into the physics of superconductivity and the operation of common superconductive devices is provided, followed by an introduction into different superconductive logic families, including the logic gates, interconnect, and bias current distribution. Synchronization, fabrication, and electronic design automation methodologies are presented, reviewing both widely established concepts and techniques as well as recent approaches. Issues related to memory, synchronization, interconnects, coupling noise, bias networks, signal interfaces, and deep scaling of superconductive structures and design for testability are described, and models, expressions, circuits, algorithms, and design methodologies are discussed and placed in context. The aim of this book is to provide insight and engineering intuition into the design of large scale digital superconductive circuits and systems.

Gleb Krylov graduated from the National Research Nuclear University (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute) in Moscow, Russia, in 2014, with the Specialist degree in computer science and engineering. He received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York, both in electrical and computer engineering, in, respectively, 2017 and 2021. He is currently with the Walther Meissner Institute for Low Temperature Research and the Technical University of Munich in Munich, Germany. His research interests include superconductive and cryogenic electronics, quantum computing, and electronic design automation.

Tahereh Jabbari received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from the Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran in, respectively, 2012 and 2015, and the M.Sc. degree and the Ph.D. degree in, respectively, 2019 and 2023, from the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York, all in electrical engineering. From 2015 to 2017, she was a researcher in theSuperconductor Electronics Research Laboratory at Sharif University of Technology. She is currently at National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado. Her research interests include superconductive integrated circuit fabrication, high Tc superconductive devices, superconductive-ferromagnetic devices, microwave design of superconductive lines, noise models of superconductive circuits, electronic design automation, superconductive and cryogenic electronics, and quantum computing.

Eby G. Friedman received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Lafayette College and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of California at Irvine. He was with Hughes Aircraft Company for a dozen years where he was responsible for the design and test of high performance digital and analog ICs. He has been with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Rochester since 1991, where he is a Distinguished Professor and theDirector of the High Performance VLSI/IC Design and Analysis Laboratory. He is also a Visiting Professor with the Technion―Israel Institute of Technology. He has authored almost 600 papers and book chapters, 29 patents, and authored or edited 21 books in the fields of high speed and low power CMOS design techniques, 3-D design methodologies, high speed interconnect, superconductive circuits, and the theory and application of synchronous clock and power distribution networks. His current research and teaching interests include high performance synchronous digital and mixed-signal circuit design and analysis with application to high speed portable processors, low power wireless communications, and server farms.