Magnetoelectronic Reconfigurable Logic
Abstract
Circuit elements that combine ferromagnetic materials with semiconductor structures have the potential to overcome two of the most significant limitations of CMOS systems: data loss on power failure and radiation-induced soft errors. Unlike CMOS structures, which rely on capacitatively-stored charge to store data, these magnetoelectronic devices encode binary values using the magnetization directions of their ferromagnetic elements, which retain their state without power. In this project, we have developed a number of circuit and system architectures that exploit the properties of a particular magnetoelectronic device, the hybrid Hall effect device, to deliver non-volatile operation and high performance. At the circuit level, we have developed designs for reconfigurable logic gates based on the HHE device that perform both AND/OR and threshold computations. Our system designs integrate non-volatile magnetic memories into processor architectures to produce self-checkpointing microprocessors that recover near-instantly from power failures and outperform conventional architectures in many cases.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 17, 2005
- Accession Number
- ADA444869
Entities
People
- Nicholas P. Carter
Organizations
- University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign