HP claims coding theory is the key to Nano-Electronic Circuits

In the everlasting quest for miniaturization, it seems that Hewlett-Packard has just made a giant leap ahead. The company reported today that its researchers have created what they believe is a new way to design future nanoelectronic circuits using coding theory, an advanced approach currently employed in math, cryptography and telecommunications applications.

"We have invented a completely new way of designing an electronic interconnection for nanoscale circuits using coding theory, which is commonly used in today's digital cell phone systems and in deep-space probes. By using a cross-bar architecture and adding 50 percent more wires as an 'insurance policy', we believe it will be possible to fabricate nanoelectronic circuits with nearly perfect yields even though the probability of broken components will be high" stated Stan Williams, HP senior fellow and director of Quantum Science Research at HP Labs.

The idea involves greatly enhancing the demultiplexer, a device that allows cell phones to communicate through different channels when the primary channel is down, into chips made of crossbar switches. These chips will also contain approximately 50 percent more interconnects--the microscopic wires that connect the millions (and soon billions) of transistors on a chip--than today's processors.

By adding a few more conventional wires and using basic coding theory, HP researchers have shown that the demultiplexer will still work even if a significant number of the connections between the conventional wires and the nanowires are broken.

HP admits future chips may be limited in the geometric complexity that can be created at the nanolevel because of problems with precision alignment, however, crossbar structures are highly regular and therefore relatively easier and less expensive to fabricate than the complex array of wires, transistors and other elements in today's processors even though they require more space on the silicon substrate.

HP is trying to get chipmakers to adopt crossbar latches for the 32-nanometer generation of chips, which are due toward the end of the decade. HP will charge royalties under license to semiconductor makers who adopt the design.