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规模和性能极限，我们可以预期，针对根本性新的信息处理技术的创新建议将迅速激增。对第一台后cmos通用计算机器的探索可能会强调由纳米级积木构建的系统中的数字计算。然而，新的纳米计算技术的提议将很难评估，这既是因为纳米电路很难建立和实验测试，也是因为危及纳米系统中信息的可靠物理表示和操作的现象将带来新的和陌生的挑战。这些考虑推动了新的理论工具的发展，用于评估在纳米级系统中可靠处理经典信息的基本物理限制，这些限制源于在缩放结束时取代硅技术的技术目标所施加的通用空间、时间和功率限制。该项目旨在推进(通常有噪声和故障的)纳米系统中数字信息处理的基本物理描述，并开发可用于评估所提议的纳米计算技术的最终信息处理能力的方法。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纳米线的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。其他探索将致力于提供对纳米计算具有普遍重要性的问题的独立于技术的见解，例如纠错的物理成本。这些调查加在一起，将有助于澄清信息处理中基本物理极限的性质及其实际后果，随着对新纳米计算技术的探索日益激烈，这一点将变得越来越重要。

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.