Operational Domain Sketching for Silicon Dangling Bond Logic

Silicon Dangling Bond (SiDB) logic is an innovative post-CMOS computing technology that operates at the atomic scale, delivering unmatched energy efficiency. However, despite its transformative potential, SiDB logic encounters a significant challenge: its sensitivity to material imperfections and variations in the physical properties of the H-Si(100)-2×1 surface on which it is fabricated, which can render gates non-operational. To address this sensitivity, the concept of the Operational Domain has gained traction in the literature—a range of physical parameter combinations that ensure reliable gate operation. Physical simulations are a standard approach to determining whether a gate is operational for given physical parameters. However, evaluating numerous parameter points can result in exponential scaling. While existing methods aim to reduce the number of simulator calls, they still rely on physical simulations, leading to inconvenient runtime. Motivated by that, we propose an algorithm that efficiently identifies non-operational parameter points without relying on physical simulations, while assuming operability for the remaining points. Since this approach might yield false positives, we call the resulting plot the Operational Domain Sketch, an approximation of the operational domain. Experimental analysis shows that the sketch can be obtained with runtime improvements of up to 365x compared to the state of the art, providing a fast method for determining the robustness of SiDB logic. This, in turn, facilitates the design of robust gates and enables reliable SiDB circuits.

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