Tiles of crisscrossed nanowires carry out elementary computations

Nature : Laying one kind of semiconductor nanowire athwart another kind of semiconductor nanowire creates a tiny transistor. Arranging multiple nanowires in a grid-like fashion creates a device that can perform elementary logic. That’s what Harvard University’s Charles Lieber and his collaborators have done. Reporting in today’s Nature, Lieber describes making and operating “logic tiles” that consist of 496 transistors and measure 960 μm ² in area. The tiles’ programming ability arises from the crossings’ configuration and from the sequence in which the wires are activated.