North Carolina State University's New Kirigami-Inspired Computer

TapTechNews on June 28, a research team from North Carolina State University, inspired by the Kirigami origami art, developed a new type of computer without using transistors and power supply, by means of a rigid complex structure, interconnected polymer cubes to store, retrieve and erase data.

The research team said that this Kirigami computer can express two states of 0 and 1 like existing mobile phones and PCs. In addition, the cube can also be used to represent 2, 3 or 4 states and define a 5-state computer.

TapTechNews note: Kirigami is a variant of origami (Japanese origami art). In Kirigami, while the paper is cut and folded, it forms a three-dimensional design.

The Kirigami computer has 64 interconnected cubes, each cube being only 1 centimeter in width and height, and different arrangements can represent different data.

The method of operating (or editing) the data is to push the cube up and down, thereby changing the geometric shape of the connected cube. The 64-cube computer can be used independently or connected to other 64-cube Kirigami computers to increase complexity and improve the storage (data) capacity of the system.