  As nanoelectronics approaches the nanometer scale, a massive effort is
underway to identify the next scalable logic technology beyond Complementary
Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) computing. Such computing technology needs to
improve switching energy & delay at reduced dimensions, allow improved
interconnects and provide a complete logic/memory family. However, a viable
beyond-CMOS logic technology has remained elusive. Here, we propose a scalable
spintronic logic device which operates via spin-orbit transduction combined
with magneto-electric switching. The proposed Magneto-Electric Spin Orbit
(MESO) logic enables a new paradigm to continue scaling of logic performance to
near thermodynamic limits for GHz logic (100 kT switching energy at 100 ps
delay). The proposed MESO devices scale strongly and favorably with critical
dimensions of the device, showing a cubic dependence of switching energy on
size, (E_m proportional to W^3), and square dependence on voltage (E_m
proportional to V^2). The excellent scaling is obtained thanks to the
properties of the spin orbit effects (e.g. Inverse Spin Hall Effect (ISHE) and
Inverse Rashba-Edelstein Effect (IREE)) and the dependence of capacitance on
size. The operating voltages for these devices are predicted to be < 100 mV
allowing a significant jump ahead of historic trends of scaling voltage with
size and corresponding reduction of energy. Interconnect resistance is a
critical obstacle for scaling beyond 10 nm dimensions. We project a less
detrimental impact of interconnect resistance and show that MESO logic is
amenable for highly resistive interconnects (100 uOhm.cm-1 mOhm.cm) which opens
a possibility to use nano-metallic (width < bulk electron mean free path) or
doped semiconducting wires (width<5 nm). A scalable, CMOS compatible,
non-volatile logic family proposed here may enable the next multi-generational
scaling of computing devices.
