Using direction of current as base for new type of binary circuits

[shivakumar06]

can the direction of flow of current be used to define binary circuits. can we consider a particular direction of flow as +1 and it's opposite as -1 and no current as zero?

 

[phinds]

You can define it any way you want, but how would you make use of it?

 

[shivakumar06]

sir i would have an extra option in if else loop.

 

[mfb]

It is problematic to get the same gate structure with currents - how do you design a gate that always leads to a specific current flow direction, independent of other gates connected to it?

sir i would have an extra option in if else loop.

Your initial question is about hardware, this is software.

 

[shivakumar06]

sir the circuit can closely resemble the neuron network of brain

 

[mfb]

The brain is not operating in binary (although axons have something close to it, the neurons do not), and it does not use current directions to transmit information.

 

[phinds]

shivakumar06, I suggest you study some basic electronics. Your posts make it seem as though you are just floundering around, playing with concepts you do not understand.

 

[Routaran]

you can essentially build a circuit with anything that has two distinct states. On/Off is one of the simplest. Direction of current will be a LOT more complicated to implement though I would imagine it could be done.

But as Phinds and Mfb have said, why?

 

[royfultun]

binary information encoded down wire by current direction

In terms of FET (field effect transistor) logic, you need a gate (transistor), or maybe two FETs at each end of the wire. That's expensive use of resources. FET logic is on/off logic in use in today's consumer gadgets.

50 years ago Current Mode Logic (CML), using bipolar transistors, would steer current (in the same direction) down one of two parallel wires. Also expensive, but very fast for the time. But it ran hot/consumed lots of expensive power. And it took up twice the surface area when running wires.

SQUID logic devices (superconductive) can use magnetic loops for bit storage and superconductive tunneling junctions for gates/switches. Maybe you could put TJs at each end of a magnetic loop and store the bits as north/south alternatives distinguished by the direction of the current in the loop. This cryogenic technology operates at roughly liquid nitrogen and colder temperatures. The great thing about cryogenic superconductive logic is that it can perform power-dissipation-free computation for free. As long as the computation is performed in a closed system, no power is dissipated. Power dissipation comes only when the computing system has to send information to and from the outside, ambient temperature world. Like your room.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_quantum_computing and references at end.
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephson_effect and references for more on tunneling (Josephson) junction switches.

 

[Psinter]

For shorts, the answer is yes...

But if you allow me to insert some comments...

BeginOfComments

I do not know what you want to do, but if you are using alternating currents frequency as a medium for binary information processing I think you would require really high frequencies to make anything worth mentioning with it (unless you are more about making sensors). Look:

"A 32nm transistor can switch on and off over 300 billion times in one second. It would take you 4000 years to flick a light switch on and off that many times."
-http://download.intel.com/pressroom/kits/events/ces2010/pdfs/32nm_Fun_Facts.pdf

After seeing that I think that a source of alternate current of a frequency of equal to or greater than 300GHz looks pretty hard to find. Unless you use transistors to achieve such an alternation, but what would be the point then if in the end you are using transistors. (you know, 60 bits per second doesn't look like much information processing power to me)

What I mean is that there are better ways of processing binary information unless you can actually make a brain like structure in which information is processed differently (but that won't be binary and if it is it would be a very inneficient brain structure when working at low frequencies).

EndOfComments