EE - Reversible Logic and Clocking Systems for Ultra-Low Power Electronics

Anyone who owns a laptop knows that power dissipation and the associated heat are a problem for the microelectronics industry.  As electronic devices scale down in size, they each use less power (and hence energy), but the number of devices integrated into computing systems is increasing exponentially so the overall energy use is increasing. This project seeks to examine the fundamental issues of energy use in computation. Are there better ways to use energy in computing than is currently done, and is there a lower limit to the energy that must be dissipated by each device?  This project is investigating adiabatic reversible logic as a means to reduce energy use by recycling the energy used in computation rather than dissipate it as heat.  The project will also involve MEMS clock generators that will be able to supply and recycle the energy used in computational devices.  Together these logic and clocking can reduce power dissipation far below that possible with conventional approaches.