Vision for single flux quantum very large scale integrated technology

Single flux quantum (SFQ) electronics is extremely fast and has very low on-chip power dissipation. SFQ VLSI is an excellent candidate for high-performance computing and other applications requiring extremely high-speed signal processing. Despite this, SFQ technology has generally not been accepted for system implementation. We argue that this is due, at least in part, to the use of outdated tools to produce SFQ circuits and chips. Assuming the use of tools equivalent to those employed in the semiconductor industry, we estimate the density of Josephson junctions, circuit speed, and power dissipation that could be achieved with SFQ technology. Today, CMOS lithography is at 90-65 nm with about 20 layers. Assuming equivalent technology, aggressively increasing the current density above 100 kA cm-2 to achieve junction speeds approximately 1000 GHz, and reducing device footprints by converting device profiles from planar to vertical, one could expect to integrate about 250 M Josephson junctions cm-2 into SFQ digital circuits. This should enable circuit operation with clock frequencies above 200 GHz and place approximately 20 K gates within a radius of one clock period. As a result, complete microprocessors, including integrated memory registers, could be fabricated on a single chip.