Parallel processing via carbon field emission-based controlled switching of regular bijective nano systolic networks, part 1: basics

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce new implementations for parallel processing applications using bijective systolic networks and the corresponding carbon-based field emission controlled switching. The developed implementations are performed in the reversible domain to perform the required bijective parallel computing, where the implementations for parallel computations that utilize the presented field-emission controlled switching and their corresponding m-ary (many-valued) extensions for the use in nano systolic networks are introduced. The first part of the paper presents important fundamentals with regards to systolic computing and carbon-based field emission that will be utilized in the implementations within the second part of the paper. Design/methodology/approach The introduced systolic systems utilize recent findings in field emission and nano applications to implement the functionality of the basic bijective systolic network. This includes many-valued systolic computing via field emission techniques using carbon-based nanotubes and nanotips. The realization of bijective logic circuits in current and emerging technologies can be very important for various reasons. The reduction of power consumption is a major requirement for the circuit design in future technologies, and thus, the new nano systolic circuits can play an important role in the design of circuits that consume minimal power for future applications such as in low-power signal processing. In addition, the implemented bijective systems can be utilized to implement massive parallel processing and thus obtaining very high processing performance, where the implementation will also utilize the significant size reduction within the nano domain. The extensions of implementations to field emission-based many-valued systolic networks using the introduced bijective nano systolic architectures are also presented. Findings Novel bijective systolic architectures using nano-based field emission implementations are introduced in this paper, and the implementation using the general scheme of many-valued computing is presented. The carbon-based field emission implementation of nano systolic networks is also introduced. This is accomplished using the introduced field emission carbon-based devices, where field emission from carbon nanotubes and nano-apex carbon fibers is utilized. The implementations of the many-valued bijective systolic networks utilizing the introduced nano-based architectures are also presented. Originality/value The introduced bijective systolic implementations form new important directions in the systolic realizations using the newly emerging nano-based technologies. The 2-to-1 multiplexer is a basic building block in “switch logic,” where in switch logic, a logic circuit is realized as a combination of switches rather than a combination of logic gates as in the gate logic, which proves to be less costly in synthesizing multiplexer-based wide variety of modern circuits and systems since nano implementations exist in very compact space where carbon-based devices switch reliably using much less power than silicon-based devices. The introduced implementations for nano systolic computation are new and interesting for the design in future nanotechnologies that require optimal design specifications of minimum power consumption and minimum size layout such as in low-power control of autonomous robots and in the adiabatic low-power very-large-scale-integration circuit design for signal processing applications.