The following article is Open access

A nanomechanical computer—exploring new avenues of computing

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Published 24 July 2007 Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd
, , Citation Robert H Blick et al 2007 New J. Phys. 9 241 DOI 10.1088/1367-2630/9/7/241

1367-2630/9/7/241

Abstract

We propose a fully mechanical computer based on nano-electromechanical elements. Our aim is to combine this classical approach with modern nanotechnology to build a nanomechanical computer (NMC) based on nanomechanical transistors. The main motivation behind constructing such a computer is threefold: (i) mechanical elements are more robust to electromagnetic shocks than current dynamic random access memory (DRAM) based purely on complimentary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology, (ii) the power dissipated can be orders of magnitude below CMOS and (iii) the operating temperature of such an NMC can be an order of magnitude above that of conventional CMOS.

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