Resonant Tunneling Diodes and Their Application to High-Speed Circuits

(Invited Paper) Koichi Maezawa

Graduate School of Engineering Nagoya University Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya-shi, 464-8603 Japan Email: maezawa@ieee.org

I. I NTRODUCTION Resonant tunneling diodes are attracting much attention because of their potential for high-speed operation as well as for high functionality due to the negative differential resistance. RTDs with 712 GHz oscillation[1] and THz response[2] have been reported earlier, and several functional RTD-based circuits have also been reported. RTDs are regarded as most practical quantum effect devices for ultra high-speed analog and digital applications in the near future. This paper discusses the applications of RTDs to ultrahigh-speed circuits, based on our recent results. II. R ESONANT T UNNELING L OGIC G ATE MOBILE One of the most important features of the RTDs is its unique I V characteristics exhibiting a negative differential resistance. For digital applications we have proposed the ultrahigh-speed functional logic gate, MOBILE (MonostableBistable Transition Logic Element)[5], [6], which exploits this NDR. There are three aspects to the operating principle of the MOBILE: 1) to employ the monostable-to-bistable transition of a circuit consisting of two NDR devices connected serially, 2) to drive this circuit by oscillating the bias voltage to produce the transition, and 3) the NDR device(s) having the third terminal to modulate their peak currents. Figure 1 shows the load curves for the circuit. As shown in Fig. 1 (a), the number of stable points is one when the bias voltage is smaller than twice the peak voltage (2Vp ). This stable point splits into two branches, S1 and S2 (Fig. 1 (b)), when the bias voltage increases through 2Vp . A small difference in the peak current between the two NDR devices determines the circuits state after the transition. For example, a larger peak current in the driver device results in the stable point S1. With the oscillatory

Current
Fig. 1.

Abstract Resonant tunneling diodes (RTDs) are attracting much attention because of their potential for high-speed operation as well as for high functionality due to the negative differential resistance (NDR). This paper discusses the applications of RTDs to ultrahigh-speed circuits. First, we described a resonant tunneling logic gate, MOBILE, which has unique features for various applications. A chaos generator circuit using RTDs and their applications are also discussed based on our recent results.

Operating principle of the MOBILE

varying of the bias voltage, the circuit forms a logic gate. This oscillatory bias voltage works as a clock. At least one of the NDR devices must have a mechanism to modulate its peak current. The parallel circuit of an RTD and a HEMT can be used for this NDR device. This mode of operation has several advantages. First, MOBILEs have a signicant advantage in that a threshold logic operation for the weighted sum of input signals is possible for a multiple input device. This is because the MOBILE uses the monostable to bistable transition and it does not output intermediate value. Using this function, the various digital circuit can be much simplied[7]. In addition to this, edgetrigger and latching function are unique characteristics of the MOBILE, and can be applied for several circuits. III. A NALOG -D IGITAL C ONVERTER U SING A MOBILE The above mentioned features make the MOBILE promising to various high speed applications. Among others, analog-todigital converters (ADCs) are the most promising application of the MOBILE, and they are being intensively studied at present. Using MOBILEs the operating frequency is expected to be much improved. In this paper, we concentrate on novel delta-sigma () type ADCs using MOBILEs[8], [9]. A ADC consists of a modulator and a digital lter.

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Fig. 3. Experimental setup for the measurement of the novel Modulator employing the MOBILE

Fig. 2.

Block diagrams of Modulator

The former converts the input analog signal into the pulse density signal at a frequency much higher than the Nyquist rate, and reduces the quantization noise at low frequencies at the expense of its increase in high frequencies (Noise Shaping). The latter cuts the high-frequency component and then converts the pulse density signal into the high-resolution digital output at the Nyquist rate. This type of ADC has a signicant advantage; higher resolution can be easily obtained by increasing the sampling rate. It does not require highaccuracy analog components to achieve high resolution. The key component of this is the modulator. Here, we employ a novel modulation technique suitable to MOBILEs using a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO)[10]. The conguration of the novel modulator is shown in Fig.2 together with the conventional one. This implementation is based on the fact that the phase of the frequency modulation (FM) signal from VCO, (t), is the integral of the input signal x(t) as (t) = , here, fc represents the output frequency of the VCO when input is zero, and k the frequency sensitivity. Therefore the integrator in the conventional conguration can be removed. Moreover, the negative feedback is inherently embedded in the VCO, because the phase returns to zero when it reaches 2 . Owing to these features, the ideal pulse density signal can be obtained without a feedback loop, which restricts the operation frequency. This technique has various advantages compared to the conventional one. However, due to some difculties this technique has been not widely used. First, it requires extremely high performance quantizer, having a short aperture time and high sensitivity at high frequency. Second, it requires ultrahigh performance VCO, having a wide frequency modulation range and high linearity. Here, we will explain how these problems can be solved if we employ MOBILEs, based on our experit =0

Fig. 4.

Output waveform of the experiment at 4 GHz

(2fc + kx( ))dx

(1)

mental results. First, we tested this modulator concept using the MOBILE fabricated on the InP substrate. Figure 3 shows the experimental setup and the output waveform. The gate length of the HEMT was 0.7 m. The peak voltage, the peak current density and the peak-to-valley current ratio of the RTD are 0.35 V, 6.0 104 A/cm2 and 10 at room temperature, respectively. The frequency modulation signal was synthesized by the signal generator and it was fed to the MOBILE. The output of the MOBILE was observed and stored in the storage oscilloscope, and then analyzed in a computer. Figure 4 and 5 show examples of the output waveform and the signal spectrum. A relatively slow clock frequency of 4 GHz was used, which was limited by the storage oscilloscope. The input signal was 1 MHz, and the FM signal was 1 GHz with maximum modulation of 40 MHz. The input signal peak is clearly seen at 1 MHz. The quantization noise decreases when decreasing frequency with a gradient of 20 dB/dec. This is the result of the noise shaping effect of the modulator. One of the most signicant features in this gure is that the noise linearly decreases more than four decades, and the remaining noise oor at 10 kHz is as small as -100 dB below the maximum noise amplitude. This ideal noise shaping

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Fig. 5. Output spectrum of the circuit. Sampling frequency is 4 GHz, with fc of 1 GHz and f of 40 MHz. Fig. 6. Output spectrum of the circuit. Sampling frequency is 4 GHz, with fC of 15 GHz and f of 40 MHz.

demonstrated that the MOBILE can work as an ideal quantizer. Next, we will explain how to solve the second problem; the VCO must have a wide modulation range and high linearity. The key is to increase the carrier frequency of the intermediate FM signal. This makes the modulation ratio (f /fc ) smaller, and the design of the VCO easier. For example, the VCO having fc of 1 GHz with a f of 1 GHz is difcult to design. On the other hand, the VCO having 10 GHz fc with 1 GHz f is much easier to design. The most interesting point of this is that the fc even higher than the sampling frequency can be used if the aperture time of the quantizer is sufciently small. In this case, the quantizer simultaneously works as a down-conversion mixer and a decision circuit[11]. Figure 6 shows an example of the noise spectrum obtained from such experiments. The fc is 15 GHz with a fs of 4 GHz. Again, good noise shaping characteristics were obtained. This demonstrates the small aperture time of the MOBILE. An extremely high clock frequency higher than 100 GHz is expected with a sophisticated circuit design. This should lead to ultrahigh performance ADC, which is promising for software dened radio system. IV. VARIOUS E XTENSIONS O F MOBILE S Recently, various extensions of the MOBILE concept have been proposed. A multiple valued logic device, called MML (Monostable Multistable Logic), is one of such devices, which extends the MOBILE concept to the circuits consisting of three or more RTDs connected serially. This device can handle multiple valued logic. This idea was successfully applied to the ash-type AD converter using multiple valued quantizer[12]. Then, by replacing the HEMT to photodiode, optical inputelectrical output MOBILEs were proposed for high speed optical communications. NTT group used ultrahigh speed photodiode, called UTC-PD, to make optoelectronic MOBILE. They reported the operating bit rates up to 80 Gb/s[13]. On the other hand, German groups proposed to replace the HEMT for input to RTHEMT, the RTD/HEMT serial combination[14]. This proposal has practical signicance in

iL Vin =V0+Asin(2ft)

Vout Cout

RTD

Fig. 7.

Circuit conguration of the chaos generator (frequency divider).

future medium/large scale integration of the MOBILE because this improves the robustness against device parameter scatterings. Along with these new proposals, novel applications and circuit design methodologies are now being investigated by various groups[7], [15], [16], [17]. V. C HAOS G ENERATOR AND I TS A PPLICATIONS In this section, we will briey discuss a chaos generator circuit using an RTD and its applications. This circuit exploits the strong nonlinearity of the RTDs. Applications of chaos, which is often observed in nonlinear systems, have attracted considerable attention in the eld of information processing and communication systems. Chaos is a deterministic phenomenon ruled by differential equations or difference equations, although it is often regarded as a random and uncontrollable phenomenon. Chaos produces varieties of complex signals even though the system is rather simple. Thus, various new applications to signal generation and processing should be possible with relatively simple circuits if one can control chaos. Using RTDs to implement such nonlinear circuits has signicant advantages, such as high operation frequency. We have studied a simple circuit, consisting of an RTD, an inductor, and a capacitor, which is shown in Fig. 7. This circuit is a kind of van der Pol oscillator having an input

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R EFERENCES
[1] E. R. Brown, et al., Appl. Phys. Lett., Vol. 58, 2291, 1991. [2] T. C. L. G. Sollner, et al., Physics of Quantum Electron Devices, Berlin: Springer-Verlag,1990. [3] E. R. Brown, et al., Appl. Phys. Lett., vol. 58, 2291, 1991. [4] T. C. L. G. Sollner, et al., Physics of Quantum Electron Devices, Berlin: Springer-Verlag,1990. [5] K. Maezawa and T. Mizutani, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys., Vol. 32, L42, 1993. [6] K. Maezawa and A. F orster, in Nanoelectronics and Information Technology, Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, 2003. [7] C. Pacha, et al., IEEE Trans. VLSI Systems, VOL. 8, 558, 2000. [8] K. Maezawa, et al., IPRM 2005. [9] K. Maezawa, et al., Int. Conf. Sold State Devices and Mater., 2005. [10] M. Hovin, et al., IEEE J. Solid-State Circ., 32, 13 1997. [11] M. Hovin, et al., 1997 IEEE Int. Symp. Circ. and Sys., 80 1997. [12] T. Itoh et al., IEICE Trans. Inf. & Syst. , Vol. E82-D, 949, 1999. [13] K. Sano, et al., IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits, Vol. 36, 281, 2001. [14] W. Prost, et al., 11th Int. Conf. InP & Related Mat., WeB1-2, 1999. [15] P. Julian, et al., IEEE Trans. Circuits and Systems I, Vol. 50, 500, 2003. [16] M. Bhattacharya, et al., IEEE Trans. on Circ. and Sys. II, Vol. 47, 1080, 2000. [17] P. Gupta, et al.,IEEE Trans. Nanotech., Vol. 4, 159, 2005. [18] Y. Kawano, et al., Electron. Lett., Vol. 39, 1546, 2003. [19] K. Maezawa, et. al., IEICE ELEX Vol. 2, 368, 2005.

Fig. 8.

88 GHz operation of the chaos frequency divider.

terminal. This circuit outputs various signal patterns depending on the circuit parameters and the operating conditions. It is well known in non-linear physics that long period behavior, whose period T is integer-multiple of the input period T0 (T = nT0 ), is observed under a certain condition in such chaotic systems. This is known as a bifurcation phenomenon. This behavior can be used for a frequency divider. We have already demonstrated ultrahigh frequency operations of such frequency divider ICs fabricated on InP substrates[18]. Figure 8 shows the output waveform for 88 GHz input. Clear 1/2 frequency dividing operation is shown in the gure. It was also demonstrated that the phase noise performance is as good as those of conventional frequency dividers. An extremely high operating frequency is expected for this frequency divider when the circuit parameters are optimized. Besides frequency dividers, several applications using chaos have been intensively studied in the eld of nonlinear physics. Ultra high frequency and low power potential make the RTDbased chaos generator circuits promising for such applications. As a rst step to develop applications of high-frequency chaos, we have tried to observe chaos signals directly in a microwave frequency range. Non periodic high frequency signals such as chaos are difcult to observe, since one can use a sampling oscilloscope. By implementing a periodic reset circuit we have recently succeeded the direct observation of chaos signals at 12 GHz[19]. This technique can be a basis for controlling the high frequency chaos, and hence for various applications. VI. S UMMARY The applications of RTDs to ultrahigh speed integrated circuits were discussed with a special emphasis on the resonant tunneling logic gate, MOBILE. The MOBILE has unique features for various applications. In addition to this, a chaos generator circuit using RTDs and their applications were discussed. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The author would like to thank Professor T. Mizutani and all my colleagues in NTT and Nagoya University for their encouragement and continued help. This work was supported in part by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientic Research from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, under contract No. 15360187, 15656087, by SCAT, and SCOPE.

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