Interacting systems for self-correcting low power switching

This letter first shows that dynamic switching schemes can be used to reduce energy dissipation below the thermodynamic minimum of NkTlnr (N=number of information carriers and 1∕r=error probability), but only at the expense of the error immunity inherent in thermodynamic processes for which the final state is insensitive to the switching dynamics. It is further shown that, for a system which has internal feedback, e.g., nanomagnets, such that all N spins act in concert, it should be possible to switch with an energy dissipation of the order of kTlnr (considerably less than the thermodynamic limit of NkTlnr), while retaining an error immunity comparable to thermodynamic switching.