Future Trends in Microelectronics: From Nanophotonics to Sensors to Energy

Current Status and Recent Developments in RSFQ Processor Design

M. Dorojevets

Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering SUNY–Stony Brook, NY 11794-2350, U.S.A.

1.   Introduction

The need for high-performance and low power computer systems capable of dealing with the avalanche of data in critical applications is well recognized.

A 2002 report entitled “High Performance Computing for the National Security Community”, prepared by NSA in cooperation with other federal agencies, clearly identified the need for user-friendly high-end computing systems with high-bandwidth capabilities because of the existence of critical applications for the national security community “that are neither met nor addressed by the commercial sector”.¹

Some of the key findings of a 2006 report on Joint U.S. Defense Science Board and UK Defense Scientific Advisory Council Task Force on Defense Critical Technologies² were that “there are applications that cannot be solved with sufficient speed or with sufficient precision”, that “commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies will be insufficient to meet unique military needs”, and that the DoD “should invest in critical, defense-niche technologies in order to assure competitive advantage over potential adversaries”.

The 2008 DARPA “Exascale Computing Study: Technology Challenges in Achieving Exascale Systems”³ concluded that there exist four major challenges – energy and power; memory and storage; concurrency and locality; and resiliency, – to achieving exascale ...