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QUBITS MEASURE THE ARK OF KNOWLEDGE? --
Quantum bits for new computational processing and storage technology have been demonstrated using individual phosphorus atoms.
Investors in silicon still have a hand in the action, however, so don't dump your fab plant-operations stock just yet.
The ability to position individual atoms, and then to both monitor and modify their spin states electronically, is opening up an entirely new micro-micro-scale age in silicon electronics. In another approach, pairs or small groups of atoms are allowed to interact naturally, while manipulations and observations of their quantum states are made indirectly. There are also implications for using parallel technology in organic systems, as well.
Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of these quantum-level discoveries, is the implication that similar quantum-level storage and processing operations are responsible for our own remarkable human memory and thinking abilities, as well as underlying all of life. There is more than a hint in advanced modern physics of connection to some of the once-scientifically-derided "mystical" ideas of both current and ancient cultures.
((Ah-ha! Fodder for future articles--not to mention sf stories.)
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BIOTIC OR ABIOTIC BRAINS?
--Are the competing technologies of the computer's future ALL based on organics?
UNDER STUDY FOR DECADES, researchers have made important strides in the controlled interaction of living neurons with silicon-based electronics.
At the Max Planc Institute, amongst a number of institutions exploring the field, neural cells have been successfully cultured on oxidized silicon substrates coated with a thin layer of collagen. Electronic circuitry built with standard semiconductor industry methodologies, located under the cell monolayers, has been able to detect the action potential pulses exchanged by the neural cells.
Some of the ultimate aims of such achievements are to find a way to interface the human (and other species) nervous system directly with electronic techology, to augment the senses, to permit more direct and complete communications (imagine seeing through others' eyes), to support new control technologies (now there is a pregnant doubles entendre), and to replace missing or damaged senses and abilities.
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GMRs use magnetism to
rewire a computer on-the-fly
--Want that new 100 GHz heptium processor in your 2-month old, slow 10 GHz hexium V computer? Buy a new motherboard, and re-do everything. Right?
But soon, perhaps, no more, thanks to Giant Magnetoresistive elements.
For years devices known as Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) have had limited use as a kind of rewiring "patch board" within expensive computer circuits. FPGAs give designers the ability to re-wire circuits without necessarily adding new parts. The potential for dynamic circuit change can even be made automatic. For instance, computer programs have been written which can cause adaptive circuit modifications in response to external requirements, such a increased background radiation (Jupiter space probes), or reduced light.
Practically the only customers able to afford the significant integration of FPGAs into mainboards, however, have been the military and commercial space satellite people.
Besides the expense of incorporating programmable circuit architecture designs, there was also the very serious drawback of a kind of electronic Alzheimers effect. FPGAs built on even good STATIC RAM or EEPROM technologies simply could not reliably hold their charge states. The data controlling their switching grids of microcircuits were stored in the usual electron-rich or -deficient charge wells of a "tunneling diode," and those electrons were prone to leak (either out, or in!) at inopportune moments. The most inexpensive FPGAs totally blank out whenever power is interrupted.
The new GIANT MAGNETORESISTIVE ELEMENTS replace the transistor in the tunnel diode-transistor design. They change state when subjected to a changing magnetic field, and, critically, hold their new state indefinitely.
GMR-based gate arrays make possible entirely new kinds of computers, with an inexpensive and reliable means of rewiring themselves as conditions change.
The most simple for-instance would be the changes necessitated by new CPUs. Instead of needing to manufacture an entire new generation of motherboards to suit the Pentium IV's architecture, FPGAs based on GMRs could be rewired via CD-ROMed instructions, to suit the new "brain,"with savings ranging from time and trouble, to pollution of the environment.
Advanced applications could allow robots travelling the Martian surface to rewire themselves in the face of new needs, or to reroute signals around damaged parts.
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