Wednesday, December 08, 2010

US Patent 7847588 - Self-adjusting nanotube FPGA

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7847588.html

Nantero has been working on programmable logic structures made from carbon nanotube switches for several years. This latest patent teaches an adaptive nanotube logic which adjusts for time delays between remote areas of circuitry. Claim 1 reads:

1. A self-adjusting nanotube field programmable system comprising:

a processing system and at least one subsystem interconnected to the processing system by at least one control line and at least one data line;

a logic circuit comprising a first plurality of nanotube field programmable devices, wherein the logic circuit controls timing of a first electrical signal transmitted on the at least one control line from the processing system to the at least one subsystem;

wherein the logic circuit compensates for delays of the first electrical signal, the delays being a function of at least the propagation distance between the processing system and the at least one subsystem and the response time delay between the processing system and the at least one subsystem;
wherein the processing system compares a second electrical signal generated by the processing system to a third electrical signal generated by the at least one subsystem and transmitted on the at least one data line to the processing system by the at least one subsystem;

wherein when the second and third electrical signals do not match, the logic circuit adjusts the propagation delay between the processing system and the at least one subsystem.

Labels: