Design and Analysis of Mem elements Emulator using Analog Building Blocks

Abstract

The evolution of electronic components has led to the discovery of various mem-elements, including memristors, memcapacitors, and meminductors, which exhibit memory-dependent behavior. These elements are poised to revolutionize many fields of science and engineering. However, fabricating these devices at the nanoscale remains a significant challenge, thereby creating a demand for mem-element emulators to facilitate experimental research and circuit design. Earlier, electronic systems relied on fundamental components like resistors, capacitors, and inductors alongside semiconductor devices. Even while these conventional components are essential, they are not very flexible in responding to changing environmental conditions. Mem-elements overcome these limitations and potentially revolutionize the industry by enhancing circuit design, functionality, and efficiency. Therefore, researchers and practicing engineers use emulation techniques to replicate mem-element functionality, allowing engineers to study their behavior without needing physical prototypes. This thesis presents the development of a versatile mem-element emulator capable of reproducing mem-elements behavior, including memristors and meminductors. This work lays the groundwork for further exploration of mem-elements in future electronic systems and provides a platform for simulating their diverse functionalities. In the thesis, six designs of mem-element emulators have been presented, including three for memristors and another three for meminductors. These circuits utilize analog building blocks such as operational transconductance amplifiers (OTAs), current differencing buffered amplifiers (CDBAs), voltage differencing gain amplifiers (VDGAs), fully-balanced voltage differencing buffered amplifiers (FB-VDBAs), and voltage differencing transconductance amplifiers (VDTAs). The first memristor emulator is designed using OTA and CDBA. The second memristor emulator employs VDGA, whereas the third memristor emulator is designed using FB-VDBA.