Self-healing chips could function forever
posted Jul 27th 2006 12:22PM
Although you may have never given a thought to what transistors do to repair themselves when certain sectors fail, there are a few organizations who make it their life's work. Researchers from the National Science Foundation, the Semiconductor Research Corporation, and the University of Michigan have a mission to complete before their grant money runs dry: to create semiconductors that can heal themselves without the burdensome redundancy currently used. The goal here, which could seem a tad superfluous until you consider these chips operate in things like airplanes and medical devices -- you know, fairly critical applications -- is to design a semiconductor that runs more efficiently and can be counted on to function no matter how crucial the situation. By designing a chip that can auto-detect a problem, then shift the resources to a functioning area while the chip diagnoses and repairs the issue with help from "online collaboration software," you'll get a slimmer semiconductor that suffers no noticeable loss in performance while self-repairing. If this circuitry talk has your wires all crossed up, here's the skinny: more dependable chips will make everyone's life a bit easier, and if the team's plan is free of defects, we can expect to see prototypes within the next three years.
[Via Mobilemag]
That's Star Trek shit man!
Wonderful. Semiconductors that develope cancer.
( spoken with heavy Austrian accent )"...on July 28th, 2009 Skynet achieved self-awareness and proceeded to...."
That's some T-1000 shit right there!
What happens in a few decades when chips get so "smart" that they won't let you turn them off? Self-healing + AI = Welcome to the Matrix. :>)
I, for one, welcome our robot overlords.
I was gonna say, we're one step closer to getting a real terminator.
I am wondering if they will be using FPGAs for the chip. If they have ample room left over the the FPGA then repairing would be a whole lot easier.
Why waste loads money in research on all these small evolutionary steps? Zyvex Corporation is already focused on what really matters - the molecular nanotechnology assembler.
All.SelfHealing();
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembler_%28nanotechnology%29
Why does every article somehow relates to terminator? lol.
The only problem with this is that the first part of the chip to fail will be the part that detects whether or not a part of the chip has failed.
@Joshua
unless thier design is even a teency bit smarter than you think it is.
"( spoken with heavy Austrian accent )"...on July 28th, 2009 Skynet achieved self-awareness and proceeded to....""
LMAO Todd
This is nothing. You can see in the film/documentry "Super Size Me" that MacDonalds invented chips that last forever ages ago.
I guess you might have to be British to get that one.
lol @ owen