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NVRAM With Disordered Assemblies (Smaller/Cheaper)
chadjg writes "
Jim Tour, of Rice University says "Our research shows that ordered precision isn't a prerequisite for computing. It is possible to make memory circuits out of disordered systems." The article on www.e4engineering.com says the team has made "NanoCells", self assembled devices made from gold nanowires and organic conductive molecules. These NanoCells are the first devices of their kind to be made into working microelectronic devices, apparently." Yep. Let an untold number of machines try to create NanoCells, and statistics says you'll find the most efficient kind.
Is this a step towards creating quantum-effect neural networks (i.e., thinking machines)?
Peace and love, y'all
Some of the more interesting bulk nanochemical processes create fairly ordered 1-D patterns (like zebra stripes). I'd bet that people are working to create orthogonal 2-layer structures of 1D patterns to create a nice lattices. Sandwich in the appropriate inter-layer, splice in connections at the edges and you have the makings of a 2D array of memory locations.
Nanocore memory anyone?
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
The real problem is the need to "train" the cells to do anything usefull. With a collection of cells of any decent size, the computing power needed to teach the system what to do would be enormous. This is the same situation that the project was in 3 years ago when I was involved with it, only then the nanocells were called nanoblocks, and now things are even more dis-ordered. From the sound of the article, they're still spinning the same thing with a new name, only 3 years later. I can only hope a whole bunch of grad students got their degrees off of this work.
This might seem really dumb, but surely this is self evident to some degree. After all, isn't that what our mind does on regular basis? Evolution has beaten us to the punch and created a self-assembled, disordered system: Our central nervous system.
The description of the system in the article with islands of gold foil and connections of nanowire seems very vaguely analogous to neurons with cell bodies and axons... I wonder if the system functions in a way similar to a group of neurons...
I don't dispute that this is a great discovery, but there's a difference between the chemistry of the process and the chemical engineering for the process. One can reproduce conditions in a lab environment, whereas the other is designed to take the process into mass production. I've seen so many unique technologies in the last few years that are great ideas but don't necessarily translate to something that can be mass-produced. Materials and process costs, materials handling, integration into production lines, packaging, built-in self-repair strategies and off-device drive are all pretty important factors, yet I really didn't see a whole lot on this in the article.
The other factor is reliability, both in the short term and the long term. Yes, the device seems to retain memory for a week without power at room temperature, but what about other factors? Alpha particle and EM sensitivity, thermal cycles and other long-term reliability issues all have to be investigated. Before I get jumped on, let me give a concrete example of a new technology: low-k dielectric. Low-k dielectrics (SiLK, Coral, Black Diamond) are materials on silicon devices used as insulation between layers of wires that connect circuits and were hailed as miracles a few years ago. However, many manufacturers (most notably TSMC with Nvidia) were having major problems where they would have void formation failures at the vias or inter-layer connections. The scariest part is that these were forming in simulated long-term accelerated tests, implying failures in the field after several years! Now, these failures have supposedly been addressed, but that's a concrete example of reliability issues with a conventional technology.
We need to tread lightly towards radical new technologies if only so that we don't get burnt down the road. I definitely believe there's room for these types of technologies, but the most essential parts of these reports are so often missing because the focus is on getting this to work in a lab, not on making money. And, as someone who worked in the field of technology commercialization in the past, it's sadly more often the case than not.