Advances in VLSI technology have lead to a tremendous increase in the density and number of devices that can be manufactured in a single microchip. One of the interesting ways in which this silicon may be used is to leave portions of it uncommitted and re-programmable depending on an applications needs. In an earlier paper, we proposed a machine architecture for achieving this reconfigurability...

The development of integration technology has followed the famous Moores Law, which was stated by Gordon Moore in the year 1965, that “the number of transistors per chip would grow exponentially (double every 18 months)”. In fact, the doubling period has even shortened to a mere 12 months. Field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) have been popular for more than 20 years, and the market size has b...

Particles contained in cosmic galactic rays enter the earth's atmosphere and collide with atoms of atmospheric gases. These collisions produce a wide variety of sub-atomic particles, many of which recombine quickly. However, a significant quantity of high-energy neutrons are also produced by these collisions. Neutrons possess no electrical charge, and do not recombine; instead, they are slowly ...

This paper describes a new method of retroactively programming a genetic circuit to exhibit the behavior of one of four logic gates (AND, OR, NAND, and NOR) using pulses of light. These pulses must occur after DNA transfection into the host cell. The pulses of light deactivate a photosensitive kinase, inhibiting phosphorylation. Using this effect, we can control the transcription of recombinase...

   This paper presents a novel design of quaternary logic gates using graphene nanoribbon field effect transistors (GNRFETs). GNRFETs are the alternative devices for digital circuit design due to their superior carrier-transport properties and potential for large-scale processing. In addition, Multiple-valued logic (MVL) is a promising alternative to the conventional binary logic design. Sa...

As SoC design enters into mainstream usage, the ability to make post-fabrication changes will become more and more attractive. This ability can be realized using programmable logic cores. These cores are like any other IP in the SoC design methodology, except that their function can be changed after fabrication. In many cases, non-rectangular programmable logic cores are required, either to bet...

In industrial control systems, devices such as Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) are commonly used to directly interact with sensors and actuators, and perform local automatic control. PLCs run software on two different layers: a) firmware (i.e. the OS) and b) control logic (processing sensor readings to determine control actions). In this work, we discuss ladder logic bombs, i.e. malware w...

38 Computer Seeking Solutions in Configurable Computing C onfigurable computing systems combine programmable hardware with programmable processors to capitalize on the strengths of hardware and software. Often these systems must also address the difficulties of both hardware and software, because they mix the technology. While the origins of configurable computing go back at least 30 years, the...

Following the simple Programmable Logic Device (SPLD) and Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) generations a third generation of programmable logic technologies is now reaching the marketplace. These new architectures are driven by the move to system level integration and fast expanding markets such as networking and wireless communications which are not addressed adequately by mainstream FPGA'...