SHF: Small: Nanocomputing Processes and Artifacts: Fundamental Description and Physical-Information-Theoretic Assessment

随着硅集成电路技术接近其最终的规模和性能极限，我们可以预期，对于全新的信息处理技术的创新建议将迅速增加。对第一个后CMOS通用计算机的追求可能会强调从纳米级构建块构建的系统中的数字计算。然而，对新的纳米计算技术的建议将难以评估，因为纳米电路难以建立和实验测试，并且因为在纳米级系统中损害可靠的物理表示和信息操纵的现象将构成新的和不熟悉的挑战。这些考虑促使新的理论工具的发展，以评估基本的物理限制，以可靠的处理经典信息在纳米级系统，限制，从一般的空间，时间和功率的限制所施加的技术目标取代硅技术在缩放结束。该项目旨在推进数字信息处理的基本物理描述，（通常是嘈杂的和错误的）纳米系统，并开发方法，建立从这样的描述，可用于评估拟议的纳米计算技术的最终信息处理能力。第一个原型评估研究将强调两个现有的建议-量子点细胞自动机和基于以太网的NASIC结构实现-并将整合物理信息理论分析和物理电路模型的结果。其他探索的目的是为纳米计算的一般重要性问题提供技术独立的见解，例如纠错的物理成本。这些调查，放在一起，将有助于澄清信息处理的基本物理限制的性质及其实际后果，这将变得越来越重要，因为寻求新的纳米计算技术的加剧。

As silicon integrated circuit technology approaches its ultimate scaling and performance limits, we can expect a rapid proliferation of innovative proposals for fundamentally new information processing technologies. The quest for the first post-CMOS general purpose computing machines will likely emphasize digital computation in systems constructed from nanoscale building blocks. Proposals for new nanocomputing technologies will, however, be dificult to evaluate, both because nanocircuits are dificult to build and test experimentally and because phenomena that compromise the reliable physical representation and manipulation of information in nanoscale systems will pose new and unfamiliar challenges. These considerations motivate the development of new theoretical tools for assessing the fundamental physical limits to reliable processing of classical information in nanoscale systems, limits that follow from generic space, time and power constraints imposed by the technological objective of superseding silicon technology at the end of scaling.This project aims to advance the fundamental physical description of digital information processing in (generally noisy and faulty) nanosystems and to develop approaches, built from such a description, that can be used to evaluate the ultimate information processing capabilities of proposed nanocomputing technologies. The first prototype assessment studies will emphasize two existing proposals---quantum-dot cellular automata and nanowire-based NASIC fabric implementations---and will integrate results from physical information theoretic analyses and physical circuit models. Other explorations will aim to provide technology-independent insights into issues of generic importance for nanocomputation, such as the physical costs of error correction. These investigations, taken together, will help to clarify the nature of fundamental physical limits in information processing and their practical consequences, which will become increasingly important as the questfor new nanocomputing technologies intensifies.