Design of thermometer code-to-gray code converter circuit in quantum-dot cellular automata for nano-computing network

This article proposes the thermometer code converter, which eliminates the requirement of binary code converter to generate gray codes in different digital modulation techniques like pulse code modulation. The nanoscale faster low-power circuit for these thermometer code-to-gray code converter has been achieved with quantum-dot cellular automata (QCA). The proposed converter circuit is made up with new QCA 2:1 multiplexer, which dominates the other existing designs in terms of QCA cells and device density. The circuits are evaluated based on area and operating speed. The design consistency is verified through theoretical values. The dissipated energy explores that the designs have lower energy dissipation. Stuck-at-fault effect analysis on the circuits has been performed. Besides, defect analysis caused by single missing cells, single extra added cells and misplaced cells is also explored. Test vectors are proposed to achieve 100% defect coverage. As encoders, these circuits can be widely employed in those high-performance functions that impose extraordinary design constraints with respect to high frequency, minimal area and low energy consumption.