Experimental demonstration of a defect-tolerant nanocrossbar demultiplexer

Abstract

Ultradense memory and logic circuits fabricated at local densities exceeding100 × 109 cross-pointsper cm2 have recently been demonstrated with nanowire crossbar arrays. Practicalimplementation of such nanocrossbar circuitry, however, requires effective demultiplexingto solve the problem of electrically addressing individual nanowires within anarray. Importantly, such a demultiplexer (demux) must also be tolerant of thepotentially high defect rates inherent to nanoscale circuit fabrication. We have built a50 nm half-pitch nanocrossbar circuit using imprint lithography and configured itfor a demux application. Utilizing a class of Hamming codes in the hardwaredesign, we experimentally demonstrate defect-tolerant demux operations on a12 × 8 nanocrossbar array with up to two stuck-open defects per addressed line.