Computation by 3D arrangements of nanomagnets

The year 2016 might mark a paradigm shift in digital computation as the well known \emph{laws} of transistor scaling seem to come to an end sooner as predicted. Hence, there is strong impetus for beyond CMOS device research in order to add new functionality to Integrated Circuits (ICs). The 2015 edition of the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors 2.0 -- Beyond CMOS, categorized current research on that field.

Our research group developed a promising technology --- the so-called perpendicular Nanomagnetic Logic (pNML)— over the last years. We aim to provide digital (Boolean) computation with non-volatile ferromagnetic computing states, purely powered and clocked by magnetic fields. Non-volatility combined with the capability of monolithic 3D integration in a planar fabrication process are key features. Instead of targeting CMOS substitution, additional functionality is provided by a co-processor architecture as a prospective back-end-of-line (BEOL) technology.

We envision a magnetic field clock for switching the computing elements by an on-chip inductor with soft-magnetic cladding to reduce the penalty of power consumption in the clocking field. The apparent unconventional computation in the ferromagnetic domain leads to highly dense computing structures with attojoule dissipation per bit operation and data-throughputs comparable to state-of-the-art high-performance CMOS CPUs. In appropriate applications with highly specialized computing architectures, they might even circumvent the bottleneck of time-consuming memory access, as non-volatile computing states and latches are inherently provided.