NANO: Applications, Architectures, and Circuit Design for Nano-scale Magnetic Logic Devices

磁系统对计算逻辑很有吸引力，因为它们是非易失性的，并且提供了每个逻辑运算的低功耗的承诺。最近的研究表明，纳米磁体可以(1)配置为实现通用逻辑门（可用于实现任何布尔函数），(2)不具有早期铁氧体磁芯笨重的缺点。这项工作将在量子点细胞自动机（QCA）架构方案中研究光刻定义的纳米磁体-其中单个纳米磁体之间的直接物理相互作用产生逻辑功能。这里提出的工作旨在实现从研究逻辑门到研究简单电路的飞跃。分析电路应该反过来提供对由磁性QCA （mQCA）器件制成的简单计算系统的预期性能的重要见解。系统是期望的最终结果。该提案有三个主要目标：1。研究mQCA设备系统的潜在应用空间。为两个看起来非常适合的应用程序空间构建所需的核心逻辑。使用(1)和(2)产生的设计、见解和实验数据来确定mQCA设备在系统级是否优于基于半导体的等效设备。在器件密度、功耗、功率密度、热波动容忍度和全局带宽方面，纳米级磁体的性能似乎可以与路线图末端的CMOS竞争（并且通常优于CMOS）。由于这项技术的基本组成部分已经通过实验证明，因此确定这项技术可行性的一些挑战现在转移到了计算机科学家身上。然而，这项工作也将讨论实验，这些实验将涉及到要探索的系统的“核心”部分的制造。在系统的背景下，磁性材料可以提供简单的制造，坚固性和真正的室温操作。这可能建议mQCA的应用程序空间需要健壮的性能和低功耗。磁性材料对辐射也不敏感，这可能意味着在恶劣的操作环境（如外太空）或卫星和军事应用中具有优越的性能。在系统层面，这项工作将针对数字信号处理和可编程逻辑。实验上，这项工作将研究I/O结构、高效互连和可编程多数门。最后，这项研究不仅将为磁性QCA的可行性提供重要的见解，而且许多提出的工作也是独立于实现的-并且将特别适用于分子QCA设备的系统。

Magnetic systems are attractive for computational logic because they are nonvolatile and offer the promise of low power dissipation per logic operation. Recent work shows that nanomagnets can (1) be configured to realize a universal logic gate (which can be used to implement any Boolean function) and (2) do not possess the disadvantages of the early, bulky, ferrite core magnets. This work will investigate lithographically defined nanomagnets within the quantum-dot cellular automata (QCA) architecture scheme - where the direct physical interaction between individual nanomagnets yields logic functionality.The work proposed here aims to make the jump from studying logic gates to studying simple circuits. Analyzing circuits should in turn provide significant insight as to the expected performance of simple computational systems made from magnetic QCA (mQCA) devices. Systems are the desired end result. The proposal has three main goals:1. To investigate potential application spaces for systems of mQCA devices.2. To fabricate the core logic needed for two seemingly well-suited application spaces.3. To use the designs, insights, and experimental data produced by (1) and (2) to determine whether or not mQCA devices can outperform semiconductor-based equivalents at the systems-level.The performance of nano-scale magnets appears to be competitive with (and is often better than) end-of-the-roadmap CMOS in the context of device density, power consumption, power density, tolerance to thermal fluctuations, and global bandwidth. As the basic components of this technology have been experimentally demonstrated, some of the challenges in determining the viability of this technology now shift to computer scientists. However, this work will also discuss experiments that will involve the fabrication of the "core" parts of the systems to be explored.In the context of systems, magnetic materials could offer simplicity of fabrication, robustness, and true room temperature operation. This might suggest application spaces for mQCA that require robust performance and low power consumption. Magnetic materials are also insensitive to radiation, which might suggest superior performance in harsh operating environments such as outerspace, or for satellite and military applications. At the systems level, this work will target digital signal processing and reprogrammable logic. Experimentally, this work will investigate an I/O structure, efficient interconnect, and a programmable majority gate.Finally, not only will this study provide significant insight as to the viability of magnetic QCA, but much of the proposed work is also implementation independent - and will apply particularly well to systems of molecular QCA devices too.