SGER: Nanoelectronic Functional Devices

电子器件小型化的不断进步使得特征尺寸在1- 100 nm范围内的纳米电子器件的制造成为可能。 然而，人们普遍认为，由于纳米结构器件的小尺寸和低载流能力，传统的集成电路设计技术将变得不切实际。 设想新的方法来规避这个问题的建议已经开始认真出现。 这些提议中的大多数使用全局相干量子系统来产生计算能力。 我们不同于这些建议，因为我们使用半经典的全球模型的基础上，设想纳米电子功能器件。 另一个出发点，是我们的假设，目前认为的限制，实现纳米结构的设备之间的互连将及时克服。 最后，我们限制注意利基应用，其中大量的纳米结构的设备的集体活动产生有用的计算功能。 这里采用的专用功能器件概念可以与其他设想基于量子力学逻辑门设计通用计算机的方法形成对比。 这项工作已经统一在一个特定的技术基础上创建纳米尺寸的金属岛阵列。 我们考虑不同类型的网络机制，电子岛之间的转移。 根据网络链路所允许的传输非线性类型，我们证明了在这些网络中可以产生不同类型的全球活动。 我们表明，此外，它是可能的，这些全球性的活动给予计算解释。 特别是，我们表明，在一个经典的电路理论模型，在本地运输的非单调非线性可以产生全局联想记忆效应。 然后，我们表明，这种解释将仍然有效，即使当单电子效应发挥作用，只要纳米岛的有效电容是不是太小。 然后，我们调查网络的岛屿中，唯一的非线性产生的单电子。 这些网络被证明是能够联想记忆效应，以及产生近似的解决方案，某些NP完全优化问题，只要有足够的灵活性，在岛间电容的选择。 拟议的未来工作包括：（a）开发用于分析和设计纳米电子网络的新理论技术，（B）开发并行机器上纳米电子功能器件的详细模拟器，（c）将新纳米电子器件和网络机制纳入功能器件。 ***

9523423 Roychowdhury Continuing advances in the miniaturization of electron devices have made possible the fabrication of nanoelectric devices with feature sizes in the 1-100nm range. However, it is widely believed that conventional integrated circuit design techniques will become impractical, due to the small size and the low current carrying capacity of nanostructured devices. Proposals which envision novel ways to circumvent this problem have begun to appear in earnest. The majority of these proposals use globally coherent quantum systems to generate computational abilities. We differ from these proposals in that we use semiclassical global models as the basis from which to conceive nanoelectronic functional devices. An additional point of departure, is our assumption that currently perceived limitations to realizing interconnects amongst the nanostructured devices will in time be overcome. Finally, we restrict attention to niche applications, in which the collective activity of a large number of nanostructured devices give rise to useful computational functions. The special purpose functional device concept adopted here can be contrasted with other approaches which envision the design of general purpose computers on the basis of quantum mechanical logic gates. This work has been unified under a particular technology based on the creation of arrays of nanometer-sized metallic islands. We consider different types of network mechanisms for the transfer of electrons between islands. Depending on the types of transport nonlinearities permitted by the network links, we show that it is possible to generated different kinds of global activity in these networks. We show, in addition that it is possible to impart a computational interpretation to these global activities. In particular, we show that within a classical circuit theoretic model, non-monotone nonlinearities in the local transport can yield global associative memory effects. We then show that this interpretation will remain valid even when single-electron effects come into play, provided that the effective capacitance of the nanometallic islands is not too small. We then investigate networks of islands in which the sole nonlinearity arises from single-electronics. These networks are shown to be capable of associative memory effects, as well as yield approximate solutions to certain NP-complete optimization problems, provided that there is sufficient flexibility in the choice of inter-island capacitances. Proposed future work includes: (a) Development of novel theoretical techniques for the analysis and design of nanoelectronic networks, (b) Development of detailed simulators for nanoelectronic functional devices on parallel machines, and (c) Incorporation of novel nanoelectronic device and network mechanisms in functional devices. ***