JPH02214045A - Arithmetic circuit element - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To constitute a circuit having a large temporary memory region by using a microscanning type tunnel microscope as a recorder and temporally storing the input on the recording medium which the recorder has. CONSTITUTION:Writing, reading out and erasing of information are repeated by connecting the movable contact of a changeover switch 12 to a signal source 13, or a recorded information reading out circuit 14 or AC power source 15 at the prescribed timing at the time when one or plural tunnel current probes 11 scan the recording medium 10, by which the partial information of the original signal is stored to the recording medium 10 by the probes 11. The circuit having the large temporary memory region is constituted as a common circuit, such as sampling circuit, shift register circuit or information inversion circuit, etc., by previously programming the scanning of the probes 11 in such a manner.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] (Industrial Application Field) The present invention provides a Z
n2. O is a piezoelectric material, 20μm×200μm
A temporary storage area is created using a cantilever-type scanning tunneling microscope, which consists of a sharp tip that is a vaporized stack using the same IC process as a mask and using a small hole as a mask, at the tip of a piezoelectric drive cantilever with a size of 5 μm. a circuit having;
In particular, it relates to arithmetic circuit elements used in sampling circuits, delay circuits, shift registers, bit inverting circuits, etc.

(Prior Art) As is well known, various elements constituting electronic circuits have been proposed. These are highly functional and
Improvements have been made such as smaller size, lower cost, and greater stability.

On the other hand, in recent years, the scanning tunneling microscope (STM;
canning tunneling
ope) (G, Binnlng.

H, Rohrer, Ch, Gerbor and
E, great clbol: 5 surface study
os by Seannlng Tunneli
ng Microscope.

Phys, Rov, LoLt, 49,1. (19'
The application of a2)) to various fields is being considered. In particular, recently, an application to a xiax child has been proposed, as disclosed in US Pat. No. FF14,575,822. According to this STM, an unparalleled recording density can be achieved, so that the recording medium on which information is recorded can be made much smaller than conventional recording media. However, since the mechanism for scanning the probe was still large-scale, no attempt had been made to apply it to various elements constituting electronic circuits.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) As described above, since the conventional STM was a large structure, it was virtually impossible to use the above STM as an element constituting a circuit.

However, at present, a micro STM has been developed in which the probe and its scanning section are made much smaller by an order of magnitude by applying brainer technology of semiconductor ICs. This micro STM is developed by Stanford University's C,F.

Developed by Kuwait, Dobrik, Albert, etc., the tip of a piezoelectric drive cantilever with a size of 20 μm x 200 μm x 5 μm is made of Zn20 formed by an IC process as a piezoelectric material. This cantilever-type micro STM is made up of a sharp-pointed probe, and is large enough to be used as an element constituting a circuit.

Therefore, the present invention aims to provide an arithmetic circuit element that constitutes a circuit having a large temporary storage area by utilizing the unparalleled recording density provided by STM.

(Means for Solving the Problems) In order to achieve the above object, the arithmetic circuit element of the present invention uses a micro STM as a recording device, and this device temporarily stores input information in a recording medium that can store -1. The configuration was such that

(Function) As described above, by temporarily storing input information in the micro STM recording medium, many of the various arithmetic elements in conventional electronic circuits that include the process of temporarily storing input information can be used. It is designed to perform similar operations.

(Example) Hereinafter, an example of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a circuit composed of the arithmetic circuit elements of the present invention.
For example, it shows a sampling circuit. In FIG. 1, 10 is a recording medium on which information can be rewritten.

This recording medium 10 is controlled by a tunnel current probe 11.
Information is written, read, and even erased.

The tunnel current probe 11 is connected to the ti#JA body 10.
It is provided so that it can be scanned in the direction of the arrow shown in the figure, with a constant distance between the two. The probe 11 has a changeover switch (SW
) 12 is connected to the write (W) side and connected to the signal source 13, so that information is written as a change in tunnel current during scanning. Also,
The probe 11 is connected to the readout side (R) of the movable contact piece of a changeover switch (SW) 12, and the recorded information readout circuit 1
4, information recorded on the recording medium 10 during scanning is read out as a change in tunnel current. Further, the probe 11 is connected to the recording medium 10 during scanning by connecting the movable contact piece of the changeover switch (SW) 12 to the erasing (E) side and connecting it to the AC m source 15. The recorded information is erased. Note that when erasing information, a voltage opposite to that during writing may be applied.

FIG. 2 shows a case where an analog signal is sampled by the sampling circuit having the above-described configuration. As is clear from this figure, for example, information is written (see figure (c)) at a predetermined timing (see figure (b)) when the probe 11 scans from the left end to the right edge of the recording medium 10. ), reading (see figure (d)) and erasing (see figure (e))), the original signal (
The main points of the sampling information (see figure (a)) are included in the sampling information (see figure (f)
) can be extracted as (see ). That is, by temporarily storing partial information of the original signal on the recording medium 10 using the tunneling current probe 11, a sampling circuit using a micro STM can be constructed.

Furthermore, in response to input of a repetitive signal, it is also possible to synchronize the scanning of the probe 11 with the input signal.

FIG. 3 shows, as an example, a case where the circuit having the above configuration is operated as a shift register circuit. in this case,
As shown in FIG. 5A, dummy information is set at the front and rear of the written information. Then, the information reading position is shifted to the left or right with respect to the information writing position. As a result, the same figure (b)
As shown in the figure, it is possible to shift the written information to the left or right. Therefore, by changing the information reading position by counting the shift amount using a clock, for example, a shift register circuit that can read information with an arbitrary shift amount can be constructed.

FIG. 4 shows an example in which an information inverting circuit is constructed from a circuit similar to that in FIG. 1. In this case, the same figure (a
), the writing direction of information and the reading direction of the information are set opposite to each other. As a result, as shown in the same figure (b), the most significant bit (MSB) side and the least significant bit (LSB,
The sides are reversed, and as a result, information can be reversed.

As described above, by making the scanning of the probe 11 programmable, the circuit shown in FIG. 1 can be configured as a common circuit for the sampling circuit, shift register circuit, or information inversion circuit.

FIG. 5 shows an example in which a delay circuit is constructed using a micro STM. Figures 5(a) and (b)
20 is a t2 recording medium on which information can be rewritten, and is rotatably provided, for example, in the direction of the arrow shown by an electrostatic motor 1. In this recording medium 20, information is written by the tunnel current probe 21, information is read by the tunnel current probes 22, 23, and 24, and information is erased by the tunnel current probe 25. ing.

The tunnel current probes 21, 22, 23, 24.degree. 25 are arranged so that the distance between them and the recording medium 10 is always kept constant, and they scan the information track 2Oa. Information is written, read, and even erased at each position on the rotating recording medium 20.

The tunneling current probe 21 is connected to a signal source 26, and information from the signal source 26 is written as a change in tunneling current at a predetermined position on the information track 20a on the recording medium 20.

The tunneling current probe 25 is connected to an AC power source 27, and is designed to erase information recorded on the recording medium 10.

The tunneling current probes 22, 23, and 24 are respectively φ/4°φ/2° with respect to the writing probe 21. <3
φ)/4 position, and the selector switch 28
It is designed to be selectively connected to the recorded information reading circuit 29 via.

In this embodiment, when the probe 22 and the recorded information reading circuit 29 are connected by the changeover switch 28, the information recorded by the probe 21 is delayed by φ/4, and the information recorded by the probe 22 is delayed by φ/4. It will be read out. Similarly, the recorded information is read out with a delay of φ/2 in the case of the probe 23 and by (3φ)/4 in the case of the probe 24.

In this way, by appropriately selecting the position where the reading probe is disposed, a delay circuit that can arbitrarily change or set the timing (delay m) for reading information can be constructed using the above-mentioned micro STM.

FIG. 6 shows an example of an arithmetic circuit element provided with a clock signal. In this case, it has at least two tunneling current probes 3.1.32, one probe 31 of which is used for reading the clock signal and the other probe 3.1.32.
2 is used for writing or reading information, and also for erasing information.

Further, on the recording medium 33 side, corresponding to the probe 31,
° A clock signal is provided in the order of a start bit, a clock bit, and an end bit, and the probe 3
An information write area is provided at the position of the clock bit corresponding to 2.

Then, the two probes 31 and 32 are operated simultaneously,
According to the clock bit read by the scanning of the probe 31, information is written in the information writing area while the probe 32 is scanning. Further, information reading and erasing are performed in the same manner.

Note that it is also possible to prepare a plurality of probes for writing information, etc., and write, read, or erase information in a plurality of areas in parallel according to the clock bit following the start bit.

As described above, by using a micro STM as a recording device and configuring the recording medium to temporarily store information, many of the circuits that include the process of temporarily storing information can be realized.

In the above embodiments, the sampling circuit, shift register circuit, information inverting circuit, and delay circuit are explained as examples of circuits having temporary storage areas using micro STM, but the present invention is not limited to these. Buffer circuits, dual port RAM, etc. can also be configured.

It goes without saying that various other modifications can be made without departing from the gist of the invention.

(Effects of the Invention) As detailed above, according to the present invention, the micro ST
By using M as a recording device and temporarily storing information in the recording medium provided in this device, a circuit having a large temporary storage area can be constructed by utilizing the unparalleled recording density of STM. It is possible to provide an arithmetic circuit element that is capable of

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram schematically showing an embodiment of the present invention, f
Figure f12 is a timing chart shown to explain the operation of the sampling circuit, Figures 3 to 6 show other embodiments of the present invention, and Figure 3 is a timing chart shown to explain the operation of the shift register circuit. 4wJ is a diagram shown to explain the operation of the information inversion circuit, 5th FllJ is a diagram schematically showing one configuration array of delay circuits, and FIG. 6 is an arithmetic circuit element configured with a clock signal. It is a figure showing an example. 10.20.33...Recording medium, 11.21°22.
23, 24, 25, 31.32... Tunnel current probe, 12.28... Changeover switch, 1'; 3.26.
... Signal source, 14.29 ... Recorded information reading circuit, 1
5.27...AC power supply. Figure 1 Applicant's representative Patent attorney Jun Tsuboi Figure 3 Figure 4 (a) (b) Figure 5

Claims (5)

[Claims] (1) A recording medium on which information can be rewritten, and processing means for temporarily storing the information as a change in tunnel current on the recording medium, the processing means having a probe, and the probe and a scanning mechanism that changes the positional relationship between the recording media. (2) The arithmetic circuit element according to claim (1), wherein the number of probes is one or more. (3) The arithmetic circuit element according to claim (2), wherein at least one of the plurality of probes is used for writing information, and at least one is used for reading information. (4) At least one of the plurality of probes is for erasing information.
) described arithmetic circuit element. (5) The arithmetic circuit element according to claim 2 or 3, wherein at least one of the plurality of probes is used for reading a clock signal.