Featured in Nanotechnology

April 2008 - A paper by members of the Information and Quantum Systems Lab on the practical implementation of nano-crossbar circuitry was recently featured as the cover story in the journal Nanotechnology.

HP Labs researchers and their collaborators have demonstrated the fabrication of nanowire crossbar arrays with ultra-dense memory and logic circuits at densities exceeding 100-Giga crosspoints per square-centimeter.

Practical implementation of such nanocrossbar circuitry, however, requires effective demultiplexing to solve the problem of electrically addressing individual nanowires within an array. Importantly, such a demultiplexer (demux) must also be tolerant of the potentially high defect rates inherent to nanoscale circuit fabrication.

In their April 21 paper, the researchers describe an experimental demonstration of defect-tolerant demultiplexer in 50 nm half-pitch nano-crossbar arrays. This represents a significant step toward electronically addressing and accessing high-density nano-circuitry with inherent defects.

The team – Zhiyong Li, Matthew D Pickett, Duncan Stewart, Douglas A.A. Ohlberg, Xuema Li, Wei Wu, Warren Robinett and R. Stanley Williams – plans to continue working to improve the demultiplexing functions of nanoscale memory and sensor arrays.