ABSTRACT
The semiconducting material silicon is at the heart of the current complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technology. In this chapter, the authors consider only electron spin as the state variable for post-CMOS computation, particularly because it is one of the most studied state variables and has the potential to offer nonvolatile operation with enhanced functionality. They introduce the reference CMOS circuit that is used for comparison with the spintronic circuit. The authors explain closed-form models for the delay and the energy dissipation of the CMOS circuit. They also introduce the all-spin logic (ASL) circuit in which graphene nanoribbons will be used as the channel/interconnect material of choice. The authors provide a discussion on the nanomagnets in the ASL circuit that serve as digital capacitors in the spin domain. They consider the nanomagnet overhead in the spin circuit. The authors present physical models of the electron diffusion coefficient in bulk and one-dimensional graphene.
