Contact-Free MEMS Devices for Reliable and Low-Power Logic Operations

We report the first experimental proof of concept of a new electromechanical adiabatic logic family operating without any kind of electrical and mechanical contacts. Based on comb-drive actuators and standard microelectromechanical system (MEMS) microfabrication, we demonstrate the cascadability of logic gates up to 170 °C, and operation in the kilohertz-range under a power supply of 4.5 V. Assuming that state-of-the-art microfabrication can downscale our MEMS gates by a factor of 100, we expect a dissipation of 0.1 aJ/op (24 kBT) at 250 kHz at 45 mV. This study paves the way toward new reliable low-power electromechanical digital circuits.