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Magnetic Logic

Francis Bacon is credited with saying, “Printing, gun powder, and the magnet ... these three have changed the whole face and state of things throughout the world.” Things might be changing again: A multidisciplinary team in the College of Engineering has received a $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation’s Emerging Models and Technologies for Computation program to study the potential of lithographically defined nanomagnets within the Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA) architecture scheme — using nanomagnets for computation. Michael Niemier (B.S., CPEG ’98; M.S. CSE ’00; and Ph.D. CSE ’04), research assistant professor of computer science and engineering; Gary H. Bernstein, professor of electrical engineering; X. Sharon Hu, associate professor and director of graduate studies for the Department of Computer Science and Engineering; and Wolfgang Porod, the Frank M. Freimann Professor of Electrical Engineering and Director of the Center for Nano Science and Technology, are investigating the viability of nanomagnets for signal processing and other applications by determining if nanomagnets can outperform CMOS systems for a given set of applications. Initial studies are targeting the environments most suited for this implementation of the QCA architecture, such as space and military applications that require very low power and are tolerant to radiation. Embedded systems will also be considered. Niemier and Hu are investigating circuit design, system-level architectures, and performance benchmarking, while Bernstein and Porod are working to fabricate design components.

In a related project, documented in the January 13, 2006, issue of Science, another team of University researchers (Porod; Bernstein; Alexei Orlov, research associate professor; Alexandra Imre, research associate; and Lili Ji, graduate student, in conjunction with Gyorgy Csaba of the Institute for Nanoelectronics at the Technical University of Munich) demonstrated magnetic QCA with nanomagnets holding information and magnetic interactions executing logic functions. This is the next step in the process toward an all-magnetic information processing system that uses little or no electricity.