LANDAUER · Operating ICT basic switches below the Landauer limit

The scientific objective of this project is to test the fundamental limits in energy dissipation during the operation of physical switches representing the basic elements of logic gates. We address the physical limits arising from a generic switch mechanism that is common to any digital device, with specific reference to the fundamental limit arising from the decrease of information in the computation procedure, also known as Landauer limit.The technological objective of this project is to introduce new conceptual devices that, through novel computing paradigms with radically improved efficiency, are capable of trading the minimum amount of energy dissipated with the computational precision.In order to reach such objectives in a joint effort, the LANDAUER consortium composed by world leading experts in nanoscale energy management will fabricate, test and evaluate three classes of new conceptual devices: magnetic switching nanoparticles", "nanomechanical switches" and "nanoelectronic stochastic logic gates" addressing applied prototypes for computing tasks in the presence of noisy operating conditions."