Superconductor bistable vortex memory for data storage and readout

Abstract Despite superconductor electronics (SCE) advantages, the realization of SCE logic faces a significant challenge due to the absence of dense and scalable nonvolatile memory. While various nonvolatile memory technologies, including Non-destructive readout, vortex transitional memory, and magnetic memory, have been explored, designing a dense crossbar array and achieving a superconductor random-access memory remains challenging. This work introduces a novel, nonvolatile, high-density, and scalable vortex-based memory design for SCE logic called bistable vortex memory. Our proposed design addresses scaling issues with an estimated area of 10 × 10 um 2 while boasting zero static power with the dynamic energy consumption of 12 aJ for single-bit read and write operations. The current summation capability enables analog operations for in-memory or near-memory computational tasks. We demonstrate the efficacy of our approach with a 32 × 32 superconductor memory array operating at 20 GHz. Additionally, we showcase the accumulation property of the memory through analog simulations conducted on an 8 × 8 superconductor crossbar array.