Preface
The volume editor and co-workers invented a novel nanometer-scale electronic
switch at the beginning of the 2000s and named it “atomic switch”. This switch is
critically different from the conventional semiconductor-based transistor switch in
that on/off switching is caused by electrochemically controlled movement of metal
atoms (ions) in a nanometer-scale gap between two electrodes. The atomic switch is
therefore a two-terminal nonvolatile switch basically, being compact in structure and
small in power consumption.
The invention of the atomic switch was made in RIKEN (Institute of Physical and
Chemical Research, Japan) and NIMS (National Institute for Materials Science,
Japan). Soon later, we started collaborative research and development of the atomic
switch with NEC Corp., and after more than a decade, in 2016, the atomic switch
was put into practical use in the form of FPGA (field-programmable gate array). As
compared to conventional semiconductor-based FPGA (SRAM-FPGA), NEC’s new
FPGA (AtomSW-FPGA or NanoBridge-FPGA) is characterized not only by
nonvolatility, small size (~1/3) and low power consumption (~1/10) but also by
high tolerance to electromagnetic noise and radiation including cosmic rays (~100
times). We also revealed that the atomic switch has close similarity to the synapse in
human brain and that random networks of such synaptic atomic switches exhibit
fascinating novel characteristics.
Recently, we opened an international symposium entitled “Atomic Switch;
Invention, Practical Use and Future Prospects” (Tsukuba, Japan, 27–28 March
2017) in commemoration of the practical use of the atomic switch. This book
consists of 12 chapters relating to representative papers presented at the symposium
and a chapter showing an almost comprehensive list of papers related to the atomic
switch published so far. The volume editor is happy and honored to have led the
invention and development of the atomic switch over two decades. I hope this book
will give new inspirations to scientists and engineers in various fields including ICT,
AI and IoT.
vii
The volume editor and co-workers invented a novel nanometer-scale electronic
switch at the beginning of the 2000s and named it “atomic switch”. This switch is
critically different from the conventional semiconductor-based transistor switch in
that on/off switching is caused by electrochemically controlled movement of metal
atoms (ions) in a nanometer-scale gap between two electrodes. The atomic switch is
therefore a two-terminal nonvolatile switch basically, being compact in structure and
small in power consumption.
The invention of the atomic switch was made in RIKEN (Institute of Physical and
Chemical Research, Japan) and NIMS (National Institute for Materials Science,
Japan). Soon later, we started collaborative research and development of the atomic
switch with NEC Corp., and after more than a decade, in 2016, the atomic switch
was put into practical use in the form of FPGA (field-programmable gate array). As
compared to conventional semiconductor-based FPGA (SRAM-FPGA), NEC’s new
FPGA (AtomSW-FPGA or NanoBridge-FPGA) is characterized not only by
nonvolatility, small size (~1/3) and low power consumption (~1/10) but also by
high tolerance to electromagnetic noise and radiation including cosmic rays (~100
times). We also revealed that the atomic switch has close similarity to the synapse in
human brain and that random networks of such synaptic atomic switches exhibit
fascinating novel characteristics.
Recently, we opened an international symposium entitled “Atomic Switch;
Invention, Practical Use and Future Prospects” (Tsukuba, Japan, 27–28 March
2017) in commemoration of the practical use of the atomic switch. This book
consists of 12 chapters relating to representative papers presented at the symposium
and a chapter showing an almost comprehensive list of papers related to the atomic
switch published so far. The volume editor is happy and honored to have led the
invention and development of the atomic switch over two decades. I hope this book
will give new inspirations to scientists and engineers in various fields including ICT,
AI and IoT.
vii