Towards a Holistic CAD Platform for Nanotechnologies

Silicon-based CMOS technologies are predicted to reach their ultimate limits by the middle of the next decade. Research on nanotechnologies is actively conducted, in a world-wide effort to develop new technologies able to maintain the Moore's law. They promise revolutionizing the computing systems by integrating tremendous numbers of devices at low cost. These trends will have a profound impact on the architectures of computing systems and will require a new paradigm of CAD. The paper presents a work in progress on this direction. It is aimed at fitting requirements and constraints of nanotechnologies, in an effort to achieve efficient use of the huge computing power promised by them. To achieve this goal we are developing CAD tools able to exploit efficiently these huge computing capabilities promised by nanotechnologies in the domain of simulation of complex systems composed by huge numbers of relatively simple elements.Comment: Submitted on behalf of TIMA Editions (http://irevues.inist.fr/tima-editions

Systèmes Complexes, Outils de CAO et Nanotechnologies

The title of our thesis is Complex Systems, CAD tools and Nanotechnologies. It concerns the study of the techniques allowing to configure a circuit containing a very high number of very simple elements and inter-connected in a very complex network, in order to emulate natural or artificial complex systems. In this context we propose a platform of CAD tools which helps the implementation and the simulation of this type of systems. Initially, we implemented a first tool of this platform allowing to experiment by simulation the laws which govern the evolution of the target system. This simulation allows to validate or alter these laws before the implementation in the nanonetwork. Then, we use this tool to experiment on various complex systems, such as artificial ecosystems and systems of particles in which a relativistic space time geometry emerges, as a consequence of the type of laws of interactions of the particles.L'intitulé de notre thèse est Systèmes Complexes, outils de CAO et Nanotechnologies. Il concerne l'étude des techniques permettant de configurer un support contenant un nombre très élevé des éléments très simples et interconnectés dans un réseau très complexe, de façon à émuler des systèmes complexes naturels ou artificiels. Dans ce contexte nous proposons une plateforme d'outils CAO qui aide à l'implémentation et à la simulation de ces types de systèmes. Dans un premier temps, nous élaborons un premier outil de cette plateforme permettant d'expérimenter par simulation classique les lois qui gouvernent l'évolution du système cible. Cette simulation permet de valider ou de modifier ces lois avant implémentation dans le nanoréseau. Ensuite, nous utilisons cet outil pour expérimenter divers systèmes complexes tels que des écosystèmes artificiels et des systèmes des particules dans lesquels une géométrie de l'espace-temps relativiste émerge comme une conséquence du type des lois d'interaction des particules

Computational Opportunities and CAD for Nanotechnologies

ISBN :978-90-481-8539-9Silicon-based CMOS technologies are predicted to reach their ultimate limits by the end of the next decade. Research on nanotehcnologies in actively conducted in a world-wide effort to develop new technologies able to maintain the Moores law. They promise revolutionizing the computing systems by integrating tremendous numbers of devices at low cost. These trends will provide new computing opportunities, have a profound impact on the architectures of computing systems, and require a new paradigm of CAD. This chapter discusses computing architectures and related CAD tools aimed at fitting the requirements and constraints of nanotechnolgies. In order to achieve efficient use of the unprecedented computing capabilities promised by them. To benefit from such computing capabilities we consider applications requiring massive computing power such as the modeling and exploration of complex systems composed by huge numbers of relatively simple elements. We are also discuss non conventional computing based on q-bits and other quantum objects, like Bose-Einstein Condensates, and the related CAD tools

Fail-safe synchronization circuit for duplicated systems

ISBN: 0769512038Actuators in safety critical systems must be driven by fail-safe signals. Under a failure in the system, such a signal must be either correct or on the safe state (e.g. red colour in traffic control lights). To achieve the fail-safe property, processors controlling such actuators use hardware and/or software redundancy (e.g. duplicated processors, software coding techniques). Each of the signals delivered by such a system must be fail-safe individually in order to drive an actuator. To create such signals, one has to use an interface that transforms the redundant signals delivered by the control processor into fail-safe signals. This can be performed by a fail-safe interface. The present work treats the case where the inputs of the interface are delivered by a duplicated system. To avoid common mode failures the two copies of the system do not share hardware resources. Thus, they use different clocks, and the two system copies are not mutually synchronized at clock cycle level. Any attempt to synchronise them will require to share some resources and will introduce common mode failures. This work proposes a circuit that transforms two copies of non-synchronised signals into synchronised signals, while at the same time preserves the safety of the system under the introduced common mode failures

Simulating Time with Computers: implementation and experimentations

ISBN 978-3-86853-546-4International audienc

Computational Opportunities and CAD for Nanotechnologies

International audienc

Transient and permanent fault tolerance memory cells for unreliable future nanotechnologies

International audienceTransient and permanent fault densities are increasing in future submicron technologies. Thus more advanced solutions may be required to produce memories in the upcoming nanometric CMOS process generations. Moreover, this problem will be exacerbated with nanotechnologies, where future densities are predicted to be several order of magnitude higher than in current CMOS technologies. For such failure densities, nowadays memory architectures and repair techniques are not adequate. This work presents several memory cells architectures and methods addressing memories affected by high defect densities as well as evaluation of the area cost and performances

Enhanced self-configurability and yield in multicore grids

ISBN 978-1-4244-4596-7International audienceAs we move deeper in the nanotechnology era, computer architecture is solicited to manipulate tremendous numbers of devices per chip with high defect densities. These trends provide new computing opportunities but efficiently exploiting them will require a shift towards novel, highly parallel architectures. Fault tolerant mechanisms will have to be integrated to the design to deal with the low yield of future nanofabrication processes. In this paper we consider multi processor grid (MPG) architectures that assure scalability beyond hundreds of cores per chip. We study self-diagnosis and self-configuration methods at the architectural level and propose an enhanced self-configuration methodology that enables usage of a maximum percentage of available fault-free cores in MPGs with high defect densities. We show that our approach achieves usability of all fault-free cores for the case of fault-free routers whereas previous work was efficient for defect densities of up to 20-25% of defective cores. We also address the case of faulty routers, achieving usability of almost all fault-free nodes (fault-free cores having a fault-free router) for very high defect densities both in the cores and in the routers