Reversible logic based concurrent error detection methodology for emerging nanocircuits

Reversible logic has promising applications in emerging nanotechnologies, such as quantum computing, quantum dot cellular automata and optical computing, etc. Faults in reversible logic circuits that result in multi-bit error at the outputs are very tough to detect, and thus in literature, researchers have only addressed the problem of online testing of faults that result single-bit error at the outputs based on parity preserving logic. In this work, we propose a methodology for the concurrent error detection in reversible logic circuits to detect faults that can result in multi-bit error at the outputs. The methodology is based on the inverse property of reversible logic and is termed as ‘inverse and compare’ method. By using the inverse property of reversible logic, all the inputs can be regenerated at the outputs. Thus, by comparing the original inputs with the regenerated inputs, the faults in reversible circuits can be detected. Minimizing the garbage outputs is one of the main goals in reversible logic design and synthesis. We show that the proposed methodology results in ‘garbageless’ reversible circuits. A design of reversible full adder that can be concurrently tested for multi-bit error at the outputs is illustrated as the application of the proposed scheme. Finally, we showed the application of the proposed scheme of concurrent error detection towards fault detection in quantum dot cellular automata (QCA) emerging nanotechnology.