The quest for energy-efficient and high-performance digital circuits remains paramount in the modern world. Transistors that support binary logic are an immediate thought while designing any digital system at the gate level. Binary logic-based circuits have long dominated the electronics industry due to their simplicity. By offering high speed, low power consumption, and compact device sizes, they enable the creation of modern digital systems including computers, mobile phones, and communication networks. Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor, or CMOS in essence, is one of the most renowned and highly efficient transistor technologies that transformed the industry. As the name implies, CMOS is a form of MOS device that combines both n- and p-type MOS. Due to the arrangement, the shortcomings of both nmos and pmos are ‘complemented’ giving rise to cmos. The demand for more complex systems, however, is increasing the visibility of the constraints of cmos designs. The study mentioned in [1] indicates that power consumption is a crucial factor that threatens Moore's law. The deep sub-micron scaling of the technology nodes creates numerous hurdles in the verification and fabrication of the designs. These difficulties are typically referred to as second order effects in MOS and will be covered later on in the study.
The proposal in support of battery-operated handheld gadgets and portable products has gained significant traction. Devices are designed to be energy efficient by implementing low-power solutions in response to the increasing demand for energy. As a result, when developing integrated circuits, the low-power application becomes vital and must take into account low power utilisation as a crucial component [2]. One of the effective approaches among the various unconventional low power design methodologies is adiabatic logic switching. Adiabatic circuits are one such design methodology that will be examined in this study. The study is based on the principle of energy recovery in a design, permitting a little amount of charge dispersion starting at the node and moving towards ground and recovering a portion of charge for reusage. There are two types of energy recovery circuits: quasi-adiabatic or partial-adiabatic circuits and fully adiabatic circuits [3]. The design of a d-flip flop based on partially adiabatic methodology will be the primary focus. Flip flops are crucial in many applications, including data storage and retrieval. Flip-flops serve as the foundation for many sequential logic designs. By investigating the impact of partial adiabaticity on a D-Flip flop, the aim is to contribute valuable insights to the current state-of-art surrounding energy-efficient digital designs.
The importance of this study lies not only in the specific analysis of the circuit(s) but also in its potential implications for future digital circuit design. As energy efficiency and power conservation grow ever more critical, the exploration of partially adiabatic circuits may offer a significant step forward in addressing these concerns. This study attempts to provide a comprehensive examination of a partially adiabatic D-flip flop, aiming to impart a deeper understanding of its capabilities and limitations in real-world applications.