Wireworld++: A Cellular Automaton for Simulation of Nonplanar Digital Electronic Circuits
Vladislav Gladkikh
School of Information Technologies and Engineering, ADA University
11 Ahmadbay Agha-Oglu Street, Baku, AZ1008, Azerbaijan
Alexandr Nigay
Department of Computer Engineering and Telecommunications
International University of Information Technologies
Manas Str./Zhandosov Str., 34A/8A, Almaty, 050040, Kazakhstan
Abstract
An enhanced version of the Wireworld cellular automaton called Wireworld++ is introduced. It can be considered as a generalization of Wireworld suitable for modeling digital electronic circuits that have intersections of unconnected wires. As most electronic circuits except trivial ones have wire crossings, Wireworld++ is a more convenient cellular automaton for modeling digital electronics than the conventional Wireworld. Wireworld++ is two dimensional; it has a small number of states and simple and intuitive rules. Despite that, it allows simulation of three-dimensional elements of digital circuits, for instance, wire crossings or electronic components placed on both sides of printed circuit boards. The key electronic parts, such as logic gates, implemented in Wireworld++ exhibit more symmetry and utilize fewer cells than their Wireworld counterparts. Wireworld++ can also be applied to simulation of computing devices in a sub-excitable, light-sensitive Belousov–Zhabotinsky medium organized in a rectangular grid of vesicles.
Keywords: Wireworld; digital electronics; wire crossings; logic gates; Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction
