Engineers Build "Self-Healing" Chips Capable of Repairing Themselves 68
hypnosec writes "A Team of researchers and engineers at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has developed 'self-healing' chips (PDF) that can heal themselves within a few microseconds. The team tested their work by damaging amplifiers in several places using high-powered lasers. In less than a second the chips were able to develop work-arounds thereby healing themselves."
More accurate to say "More resilient chips"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to be too pedantic about it, but I'm very touchy about biological metaphors being inappropriately applied to technology (lets we forget how amazingly complex evolved biology really is compared to even our most advanced tech). FTFA, it sounds like they don't really "heal," they just reroute around the damage. But the damage is still there. It's more analogous to network packets being rerouted around a bad server than a biological entity actually replacing damaged cells.
That BS again.... (Score:5, Insightful)
They are NOT "self-healing". That would mean they can get back to their original state after damage. What these things have is a high level of redundancy. But whenever they suffer damage, the redundancy gets less and eventually they fail. Calling this "self-healing" is a direct lie.
Re:That BS again.... (Score:5, Insightful)
| You can't repair the building blocks in electronics.
Yet.