DNA Self-assembly and Computer System Fabrication

Abstract

The migration of circuit fabrication technology from the microscale to the nanoscale has generated a great deal of interest in how the fundamental physical limitations of materials will change the way we engineer computing systems. The changing relationships between performance, defects, and cost have motivated research into so-called disruptive or exotic technologies. This talk will present the theory, design, and methods of fabrication for DNA self-assembled nanostructures within the context of circuit fabrication. The advantages of this technology go beyond the simple scaling of device feature sizes (sub-20nm) to enable new modes of computation that are impractical under the constraints of conventional fabrication methods. A brief survey of several computer architectures that can take advantage of this new technology will also be presented.

Chris Dwyer is an assistant professor at Duke University in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering with a secondary appointment in the Department of Computer Science. He received his B.S. in computer engineering from the Pennsylvania State University in 1998, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in computer science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2000 and 2003, respectively. Dwyer was a 2006 Microsoft Research New Faculty finalist and is a member of the IEEE, ACM, Eta Kappa Nu, Tau Beta Pi, and Golden Key. Dwyer's research interests include the design, simulation, and fabrication of self-assembling nanoscale systems and computer architectures.