“Nanotechnology and the Future of Computing "

Presented by Duncan Stewart, Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Palo Alto, CA USA

Date: Wednesday, 15 February 2006
Time: 6:30pm - refreshments, 7:00pm - talk
Location: Hewlett Packard (see directions), Pruneridge and Wolfe, Cupertino, Bldg. 48, Oak Room.
Cost: Free and open to all who wish to attend, but membership is only $10/year.

Topic:
“Nanotechnology” will solve every electronics, materials and biology problem we have, according to some of the latest techno-hype. Or destroy the world with self-replicating nano-robots, predicts popular fiction. One clear application of nanotechnology is to extend the computing performance improvements of the past decades. Hewlett-Packard Labs initiated a dedicated effort in nanotechnology for computing more than five years ago. The Quantum Science Research lab has a charter to invent new nanoscale electronic devices, architectures, and manufacturing techniques. We will look at the promise that nanotechnology brings to computing, including new nano-device physics and interesting new computing architectures. We will also discuss software configuration of defect- and fault-tolerance, a critical design paradigm for any machine built from intrinsically defective nanoscale components.

About the Speaker:
Duncan Stewart sees himself as midway between a physicist and an engineer. The Quantum Science Research group at Hewlett-Packard Labs is sort of a hybrid as well -- a mix of chemists, physicists, engineers and computer architects. Their mandate is to discover the ultimate physical limits of logic, memory and communications technologies, then build nanometer scale electronic and photonic systems that operate at those limits. Stewart’s expertise is electronic transport in nanoscale devices, including hybrid organic-inorganics. He joined HP Labs in 1999, following a B.A.Sc. in Engineering Physics from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. in Applied Physics at Stanford University.