The Fluxon Carries the Bit
The Fluxon Carries the Bit
Ordinary digital logic stores a bit as a voltage held against leakage, spending power the whole time it waits. RSFQ abandons voltage entirely. A bit is a single quantum of magnetic flux, trapped in a superconducting loop, that either has or has not passed — a picosecond pulse, not a held state.
Logic gates become junctions the fluxon must or must not have enough bias to cross; computation is the flux quantum's transit, and a wire with no resistance means the pulse pays no toll to carry it.
Seed: Rapid Single Flux Quantum (RSFQ) / ERSFQ digital logic.
Central fact: RSFQ logic encodes a bit as the presence or absence of a single quantized magnetic flux pulse traveling through superconducting loops and Josephson junctions, rather than a sustained voltage level, eliminating the static power dissipation of conventional CMOS logic.
