Computation by wave propagation simulated on self-Timed cellular automaton

Defect-tolerance, the ability to overcome unreliability of components in a system, will be essential to realize computers built by nanotechnology. This paper presents a novel approach toward defect-tolerance for nanocomputers that are based on self-timed cellular automata. Called Macro cell model, this model represents its computational elements by large collections of cells, thus endowing them with a high level of redundancy. Computational processes in this model are conducted through the propagation of certain cell states over parts of the cell space within and between the macro cells. We show how computation can be performed on the macro cells.