2 research outputs found
On Irregular Interconnect Fabrics for Self-Assembled Nanoscale Electronics
Nanoscale electronics and novel fabrication technologies bear unique
opportunities for self-assembling multi-billion component systems in a largely
random manner, which would likely lower fabrication costs significantly
compared to a definite ad hoc assembly. It has been shown that communication
networks with the small-world property have major advantages in terms of
transport characteristics and robustness over regularly connected systems. In
this paper we pragmatically investigate the properties of an irregular,
abstract, yet physically plausible small-world interconnect fabric that is
inspired by modern network-on-chip paradigms. We vary the framework's key
parameters, such as the connectivity, the number of switch blocks, the number
of virtual channels, the routing strategy, the distribution of long- and
short-range connections, and measure the network's transport characteristics
and robustness against failures. We further explore the ability and efficiency
to solve two simple toy problems, the synchronization and the density
classification task. The results confirm that (1) computation in irregular
assemblies is a promising new computing paradigm for nanoscale electronics and
(2) that small-world interconnect fabrics have major advantages over local
CA-like topologies. Finally, the results will help to make important design
decisions for building self-assembled electronics in a largely random manner.Comment: Published at the 2nd IEEE International Workshop on Default and Fault
Tolerant Nanoscale Architectures, NANOARCH'06, June 17, 2006, Boston, MA, US
Wolfram's Classification and Computation in Cellular Automata Classes III and IV
We conduct a brief survey on Wolfram's classification, in particular related
to the computing capabilities of Cellular Automata (CA) in Wolfram's classes
III and IV. We formulate and shed light on the question of whether Class III
systems are capable of Turing universality or may turn out to be "too hot" in
practice to be controlled and programmed. We show that systems in Class III are
indeed capable of computation and that there is no reason to believe that they
are unable, in principle, to reach Turing-completness.Comment: 27 pages, 13 figures, forthcoming in Irreducibility and Computational
Equivalence to be published by Springer Verlag
(http://www.mathrix.org/ANKSAnniversaryVolume.html). Extended paper version
to appear in the Journal of Cellular Automata (JCA