Phase engineering techniques in superconducting quantum electronics

Due to the pulse driven nature of the Rapid Single Flux Quantum electronics nearly every basic cell requires the capability of temporary data storing. Implementing phase shifting elements in this essential device leads to several advantages concerning the device characteristics. There are different concepts enabling phase shifting elements. We give a comparative overview about these approaches. The effect of this novel element on a basic cell is analyzed exampling a toggle-flip-flop. Based on the effective noise temperature determined from the experimental results of a standard flip-flop, the bit error rate for several toggle-flip-flop realizations containing different phase shifting elements was calculated. A significantly improved area of function could be shown by simulated error rates lower than 10-12 with a DC bias margin better than ±63.5%.