A Review on Performances of Reversible Ripple-Carry Adders

Quantum computing and circuits are of growing interest and so is reversible logic as it plays an important role in the synthesis of quantum circuits. Moreover, reversible logic provides an alternative to classical computing machines, that may overcome many of the power dissipation problems in the near future. Some ripple-carry adders based on a do-spy-undo structure have been designed and tested reversibly. This paper presents a brief overview of the performances obtained with such chips processed in standard 0.35 um CMOS technology and used in true reversible calculation (computations are performed forwards and backwards such that addition and subtraction are made reversibly with the same chip). Adiabatic signals used are known to allow the signal energy stored on the various capacitances of the circuit to be redistributed rather than being dissipated as heat while allowing to avoid calculation errors introduced by the use of conventional rectangular pulses. Through the example of both simulations and experimental results, this paper aims at providing a base of knowledge and knowhow in physical implementation of reversible circuits.