Transitioning from Microelectronics to Nanoelectronics

Published by the IEEE Computer Society 0018-9162/11/$26.00 © 2011 IEEE For many computer architects, the first challenge takes priority. After all, we are used to operating under the protection of well-designed abstractions that permit our architectures to accommodate anything from ideal switches to the least palatable of devices that might be foisted upon us. However, the nanodevices that prevail over silicon seem destined to break even the sturdiest of abstractions. The relationships between computation and communication shift as we approach the nanometer scale, such that novel nanodevices impose new rules about the partitioning and allocation of “code” and “data,” for example. This can be a blessing in disguise: although it requires system designers to look beyond stored-program architectures with which they are comfortable, it also liberates them to work with new hardware primitives. In fact, postsilicon nanodevices might not even compute in a binary fashion. Thus, several standout nanocomputer architects have adopted a more transcendent approach that also addresses the second key challenge. They have realized that by breaking down abstractions and facing challenges in an integrated fashion from the devices up, novel systems might be developed that ultimately go beyond von Neumann processing on silicon. Moreover, some have taken steps to demonstrate how this could be accomplished in the near term.