Comparing ternary and binary adders and multipliers

Abstract: While many papers have proposed implementations of ternary adders and ternary multipliers, no comparisons have generally been done with the corresponding binary ones. We compare the implementations of binary and ternary adders and multipliers with the same computing capability according to the basic blocks that are 1-bit and 1-trit adders and 1-bit and 1-trit multipliers. Then we compare the complexity of these basic blocks by using the same CNTFET technology to evaluate the overall complexity of N-bit adders and M-trit adders on one side, and NxN bit multipliers and MxM trits multipliers with M = N/IR (IR = log(3)/log(2) is the information ratio). While ternary adders and multipliers have less input and output connections and use less basic building blocks, the complexity of the ternary building blocks is too high and the ternary adders and multipliers cannot compete with the binary ones.