A new design of arithmetic and logic unit for enhancing the security of future internet of things devices using quantum-dot technology

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of interconnected devices that collect, monitor, analyze, and exchange data. This technology plays a crucial role in the smart city infrastructure by seamlessly interconnecting various nodes. The extensive application and recognition of IoT across multiple city domains, such as healthcare, transportation, energy, education, and agriculture, bring significant challenges, with security among the most pressing. Traditional hardware technologies like Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) and Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) suffer from limitations such as high power consumption and insufficient scalability, which hinder secure and sustainable IoT deployment. Such limitations have prompted the need to seek other technologies that would serve the dual purpose of providing security as well as energy. Quantum-based technologies can become adequate candidates offering promising solutions to make IoT devices and sustainable systems more secured. Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA) has been proposed as a nanotechnology with the potential of consuming ultra-low powers, less area, and high-speed operation. QCA enhances security through sustainable computing objectives by minimizing energy usage. To improve the future security and efficiency of IoT hardware, this paper suggests a QCA-based Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU). This ALU can generate more than 12 logical and arithmetic operations. Designed together with the majority gates, XOR gates, multiplexers, and full adders, the ALU is simulated using the QCA-Designer 2.0.3. Simulated results indicate improvements in the number of cells and reduced occupied area relative to the earlier designs. These results indicate the potential of QCA technology in enabling secure, energy-efficient, and compact computing architecture applicable in the future IoT.