Design and simulation of sequential circuits in quantum-dot cellular automata: Falling edge-triggered flip-flop and counter study

Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA) is an emerging nanotechnology, with extremely small feature size and ultralow power consumption comparing with transistor-based technology. Anteriority, basic level-triggered flip-flop designs based on QCA implementation were examined. In this paper, we utilize the unique QCA characteristics and clock zones to design falling edge-triggered J-K flip-flop that is stable and practical. Simulation with the QCADesigner simulator is performed to verify the functionality of the proposed falling edge-triggered flip-flop. This paper also explores the design of counters. Synchronous counters are designed with several different bit sizes and simulation results demonstrate the validity of them.