New design principles for the development of high performance submicron digital technologies are presented in this paper. These principles are based on the use of conservative logic to reduce signal regeneration, thus reducing power dissipation.

Fredkin and Toffoli provide sound reasoning for the need to apply conservative logic, which can result in significant savings in power dissipation. Some of their suggested principles have been subsequently applied by other researchers in adiabatic complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) computing. Adiabatic CMOS techniques, which require the use of inductors, are applicable to small set of applications in current submicron digital technology. However, conservative logic has great potential for success, once Josephson-effect technology and integrated optics become more economically viable for digital circuit implementations.