Efficient Memristive Stateful Logic Exploring Boolean Expressions in the Sum-of-Products Form

The semiconductor industry faces growing difficulties in addressing technical and technological challenges, such as the exhaustion of CMOS downscaling and the limitations imposed by the von Neumann bottleneck. At the same time, this sector needs to meet the requirements of increasingly demanding applications, such as Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). These circumstances have boosted the research development related to emerging technologies and new computing paradigms. In this context, the unique features of memristive devices make them promising objects of study in both areas. In light of this, we present a new concept for performing logic-in-memory (LiM) using memristive devices. Our method is based on expressions in the form of sum-of-products (SOP), and it establishes a pattern of voltage application on memristors, from which it is possible to compute any Boolean function through sequential steps. Our proposal exhibits an intuitive relationship with logic synthesis tools currently used in digital circuit design, and it can outperform other generalist schemes in the literature in sequence size and device count. Moreover, its implementation flexibility simplifies the handling of functions with varying fan-ins.