Nanotechnology: A Gentle Introduction to the Next Big Idea

Gates and Switches

Standard computer and microelectronic design is based on the use of the field effect transistor, which is a very simple switch that can be turned from on to off by applying voltage to its control (called a gate) electrode. By combining and cascading these transistor on-off switches, it is possible to create higher logic structures called logic gates (not related to the gate electrode, which is the control interface for a transistor, or to Bill Gates, who occasionally defies logic. Logic gates are also known as Boolean logic gates, after George Boole, a 19th-Century English mathematician). Logic gates can perform a variety of logical functions on input signals including AND, OR, and NOT. Combining logic gates with memory devices ...