IBM Announces Chip Morphing Technology

An anonymous reader writes "IBM has announced that it is now capable of producing self-healing chips. From the article: 'eFUSE works by combining software algorithms and microscopic electrical fuses, opposed to laser fuses, to produce chips that can regulate and adapt their own actions in response to changing conditions and system demands.' It goes on to say that the IBM system is more robust than previous methods, and that the chips are already in production. The future is here!"

Comments

Obiligatory 2001 Quote...

[rob.sharp]

"I know you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen."

Re:Obiligatory 2001 Quote...

[Pharmboy]

How applicable. Nothing beats a technology that brings up images of either "2001" or "The Matrix". (insert eFuse Overlord joke here)

But on a more serious note, while this sounds pretty cool, it still breaks down to this: If a portion of the chip is screwed up, eFuse will bypass it. If you bypass part of the chip, you will have lower performance. I can see where this would be good in enterprise computing *IF* the chip also *TELLS* you that it is messed up, so if a portion of the chip becomes defective, it will still operate until it can be replaced. This would be great for uptimes and in mission critical systems, but for overclocking desktop system, this seems pretty useless, here is why:

Take a 2ghz chip. Overclock to 2.5ghz. Blow two eFuses (oops). Now chip at 2.5ghz functions as fast as a 2ghz chip. Clock back down, and it performs as fast as a 1.5ghz chip. Sell chip or system on eBay to someone without telling them eFuses are blown, screwing them over.

Unless there is a way to test if the eFuses are blown, I can see some real problems on the used market for this kind of chip. This would also apply to "why is this server performing like crap?" situations. Of course, as long as the eFuses are not blown, but are instead just reordering its own logic for specific uses (web server only, database server, etc), this would be majorly kick ass offering a quazi-specific purpose system on the fly. Especially once you have a kernel module that can talk to it and tell it what kinds of changes in routing would be best for a given platform, telling it "this computer is used for $x only, route logic accordingly".

Re:Overclocking made safer.

[dnoyeb]

Heal, lol. What did I miss? A fuse is something that interrupts a circuit permanently. Akin to gnawing off a leg.

Reading their article, the big improvement is the leg has no chance to grow back.

Sounds like total spin to claim that descruction of circuits is a healing process. I smell DRM all over this.

Re:Basis for PowerTune?

[rale, the]

No, its not. Theres a pretty huge difference between changing logic and simply lowering frequency by a range of dividers.

With a limit?

[usefool]

Surely a chip cannot keep self-healing indefinitely can't it?

If it's capable of re-routing certain path when something went wrong, it'll eventually run out of alternative path, or the performance will be degraded to next to useless.

However it's certainly a good pre-emptive tool for mission critical machines, provided it has a way of informing the admin that it's dying, rather than secretly degrading.

Default Color Link

[Anonymous Coward]

Before that other guy does it:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/30/220256 &tid=136&tid=137&tid=126

Who benefits really?

[hashwolf]

When batches of silicon chips are made a number of them are always defective.

This technology is more beneficial for IBM than for us because it will allow IBM to SELL defective-but-self-repairable chips instead of SCRAPPING them. Because of this, it is highly probable that there will be no way end users will be able to garner info about to what extent the chip has already repaired itself.

If this is the case IBM will probably take one of the following roads:
1) Continue with the current manufacturing standards - this would yield chips with more longevity.
2) Manufacture chips with less stringent (and hence cheaper) manufacturing standards - although this would yield more defective chips, these won't be thrown away since they can self repair; they will be sold instead!

I really hope it's not option #2 they chose.