This project is funded as part of the United States-Israel Collaboration in Computer Science (USICCS) program. Through this program, NSF and the United States - Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF) jointly support collaborations among US-based researchers and Israel-based researchers. Computing systems are embedded in a wide variety of commercial applications, driving the economy and transforming our society and culture. The next generation computing systems are becoming severely limited by energy dissipation constraints, due to the need for portability and ever increasing complexity. These computer systems range in applications from battery operated personal devices to large scale data servers servicing the internet. The primary objectives of this project are to provide circuit and architectural design technologies to fundamentally enhance this condition of energy constraints by exploiting new magnetic technologies in the design of these computing systems. Specifically, memristors will be exploited to develop advanced computing systems that will use fundamentally less power while offering novel heretofore unseen applications due to the inherent advantages of this burgeoning and exciting technology.
The ability of memristors to maintain state without energy will be exploited as a replacement for on-chip memory; for example, DRAM and high speed cache, to greatly lower the energy requirements of portable computing. Furthermore, due to the ability to easily integrate memristors with CMOS, hybrid circuits and architectures will be developed to provide novel computing structures that operate differently and advantageously as compared to modern computing systems. The combination of these novel circuit structures, computing architectures, and advanced magnetic technologies will contribute to better understanding and exploitation of on-chip locality of information while reinvigorating the slowing development of computing technologies. Furthermore, improved portability will be attained while saving energy and enhancing the environment.
