June 9, 2005 — Hewlett-Packard announced today that its researchers have created a new way to design nanoelectronic circuits. The company claims that the method could improve the yields and lower the cost of fabricating nanoelectronic circuits.

The method is described in a paper in the June 6 issue of Nanotechnology, a publication of the Institute of Physics. The paper was authored by Phil Kuekes, Warren Robinett, Gadiel Seroussi and Stan Williams of HP Labs.

“We have invented a completely new way of designing an electronic interconnect for nanoscale circuits,” stated Williams, an HP Senior Fellow and director of quantum science research at HP Labs, in a release issued this morning.

The method starts with what is known as a crossbar architecture — in which a set of parallel nanoscale wires are laid atop another set at approximately a 90 degree angle, sandwiching a layer of electrically switchable material. Switches are created where material is trapped between crossing wires.

HP says it augmented the crossbar architecture by adding about 50 percent more wires than would otherwise be required. “By using a crossbar architecture and adding 50 percent more wires as an ‘insurance policy,’ we believe it will be possible to fabricate nano-electronic circuits with nearly perfect yields, even though the probability of broken components will be high,” Williams said in the release.

In order to accurately reconstruct information transmitted across multiple wires, the group is using a technique called coding theory that is currently used in cryptography and telecommunications.