A CADENCE-BASED DESIGN ENVIRONMENT FOR SINGLE FLUX QUANTUM CIRCUITS

The semiconductor industry standard computer-aided-design (CAD) tool C adence has been calibrated for a 3 mu m Niobium technology in order to design and build superconductive single flux quantum (SFQ) circuits. The top-down design methodology includes Verilog functional simulation , schematic capture, graphic layout, functional verification, design r ule checking, electrical rule checking, and layout-vs.-schematic verif ication, This design framework has been used successfully at the Unive rsity of Rochester hd designing more than 15 elementary SFQ cells and three large scale digital and mixed-signal SFQ circuits, demonstrating significant improvement in both design efficiency and accuracy.