The Machine: HP's New Memristor Based Datacenter Scale Computer - Still Changing Everything
Quote:
The end of Moore’s law is the best thing that’s happened to computing in the last 50 years. Moore’s law has been a tyranny of comfort. You were assured your chips would see a constant improvement. Everyone knew what was coming and when it was coming. The entire semiconductor industry was held captive to delivering on Moore’s law. There was no new invention allowed in the entire process. Just plod along on the treadmill and do what was expected. We are finally breaking free of these shackles and entering what is the most exciting age of computing that we’ve seen since the late 1940s. Finally we are in a stage where people can invent and those new things will be tried out and worked on and find their way into the market. We’re finally going to do things differently and smarter.
-- Stanley Williams (paraphrased)
|
Some may not know that HP is working on a new machine architecture that will use the Memristor Memory it's been developing.
The new memory is faster than DRAM, non-volatile and appears to be able to keep its state when powered off on the order of geologic time, is many times denser than anything currently available, and uses very little energy to change state. HP is betting that it will replace hard drive, flash, DRAM and cache thus radically simplifying computing architecture. The cross bar architecture can also use memory as processor using implication logic. Although it doesn't look like the first machines based on the technology will do this.
HP is launching an open source initiative to create the next generation operating systems for it's new hardware. It is also inviting Microsoft to port its OS as well.
If HP is successful it will probably usher in Moore's Law 2.0 just as Moore's Law 1.0 appears to be winding down.
One interesting property of a Memristor is that it can actually store a multitude of states instead of just on and off. It turns out that the electronic analog of a biologic neuron was lacking this electrical component which allows the construction of a neuron with a small number of components. A DARPA funded company called SyNAPSE is working on a neural network chip that will use Memristors in this capacity.
DARPA SyNAPSE Program
Moore's Law is dead... Long live Moore's Law!
from your http.
Linear Mode
