Logic Synthesis of CMOS Circuits and Beyond

Traditional logic synthesis represents the seed of a whole discipline, which, over the years, has evolved hands-in-hands with electronic technologies, making the design of complex systems feasible. The evolution of logic synthesis tools has been driven by the scaling of complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology. The approach of GALS and its extension to multilevel logic follow a traditional synthesis approach based on direct synthesis of a logic expression. This chapter considers two main design styles for synthesizing combinational circuits: two-level logic and multilevel logic. It reviews two specific emerging devices namely, ambipolar silicon nanowires (SiNW) and graphene p-n junctions. The chapter also reviews the basic contributions in the field of low power logic synthesis. Recent trends have shown how standard logic synthesis methodologies and strategies can be easily adapted to support new emerging computing paradigms and beyond-CMOS technologies.