Unifying Figures of Merit: A Versatile Cost Function for Silicon Dangling Bond Logic

As Silicon Dangling Bond (SiDB) logic emerges as a promising beyond-CMOS technology, Figures of Merit (FoMs) to assess gate performance become crucial in implementing devices that are robust against environmental variations. Con-structing robust SiDB logic involves designing gates that excel across multiple FoMs. However, there exist no clear guidelines on the ideal ranges for FoM values, nor a systematic approach to designing SiDB gates that optimize across multiple FoMs. Motivated by this, this work focuses on addressing the following key objectives: 1) Introduction of a new FoM, called Band Bending Resilience. 2) Determination, presentation, and detailed discussion on the best achievable values for each FoM for all 2-input Boolean functions. 3) Presentation of the versatile cost function χ, unifying multiple FoM
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tailored to specific application requirements and priorities. 4) Implementation of the optimization strategy using the cost function χ, which aims at designing SiDB logic with minimal cost, ensuring an optimal balance between all FoMs. Overall, this research contributes significantly to the understanding of SiDB logic, establishing a basis for future progress in the field.