The benefits in using double-gate (DG) MOSFETs as components of threshold logic gates (TLG) have been analyzed for the first time. A novel, variable-weight DG-TLG has also been proposed, which can greatly widen the range of reconfigurable functions accessible to users. Both fixed and variable-weight DG-TLG circuits operate correctly at a low supply voltage of 1.0 V, and outperform the conventional CMOS equivalents in terms of the most important metrics such as power, speed and area. It is found that variable-weight DG-TLG circuits with analog weight and threshold control have attractive features such as expanded TLG functionality, reduced transistor count, low programming voltages and power-scaling capability, particularly for circuits with four or fewer inputs. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.