Exploring and exploiting wire-level pipelining in emerging technologies

Pipelining is a technique that has long since been considered fundamental by computer architects. However, the world of nanoelectronics is pushing the idea of pipelining to new and lower levels-particularly the device level. How this affects circuits and the relationship between their timing, architecture, and design will be studied in the context of an inherently self-latching nanotechnology termed quantum cellular automata (QCA). Results indicate that this nanotechnology offers the potential for "free" multi-threading and "processing-in-wire". All of this could be accomplished in a technology that could be almost three orders of magnitude denser than an equivalent design fabricated in a process at the end of the CMOS curve.