A Life-Cycle Energy and Inventory Analysis of Adiabatic Quantum-Flux-Parametron Circuits

TL;DR

This paper presents a comprehensive life-cycle assessment of AQFP superconducting circuits, showing they consume significantly less energy during use and overall compared to CMOS technology, highlighting their environmental advantages.

Contribution

It is the first to perform a detailed process-based LCA of AQFP circuits, including manufacturing, assembly, and use phases, and compares them with CMOS technology.

Findings

AQFP circuits consume orders of magnitude less energy during operation.

Total life cycle energy of AQFP circuits is at least 100 times lower than CMOS.

AQFP technology offers substantial environmental benefits over CMOS.

Abstract

The production process of superconductive integrated circuits is complex and consumes significant amounts of resources and energy. Therefore, it is crucial to evaluate the environmental impact of this emerging technology. An attractive option for the next generation of superconductive technology is Adiabatic Quantum-Flux-Parametron (AQFP) devices. This study is the first to present a comprehensive process-based life-cycle assessment (LCA) and inventory analysis of AQFP integrated circuits. To generate relevant outcomes, we conduct a comparative LCA that included the bulk CMOS technology. The inventory analysis considered the manufacturing, assembly, and use phases of the circuits. To ensure a fair assessment, we choose the 32-bit AQFP RISC-V single-core processor as the reference functional unit and compare its performance with that of a CMOS counterpart. Our findings reveal that the AQFP processor consumes several orders of magnitude less energy during the use phase than its CMOS counterpart. Consequently, the total life cycle energy (which encompasses manufacturing and assembly energies) of AQFP integrated circuits improves at least by two orders of magnitude.