HP's Crossbar Latch... Next-Gen Transistor? 343
moojin writes "CNN.com reports that "in a paper published in Tuesday's Journal of Applied Physics, HP said three members of its Quantum Science Research group propose and demonstrate a "crossbar latch," which provides the signal restoration and inversion required for general computing without the need for transistors.""
The Club... (Score:4, Funny)
Can you say "invented"? (Score:2, Funny)
Some funding for the experiment came from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
Yeah. I'm betting that "some" of the tech used came from the same source as well. I mean, if it's been proven [tt] [wealth4freedom.com] that transistors couldn't have been invented the all of a sudden way they were in 1947 (or even using today's technology), then how are they expecting us to believe that this new tech isn't reverse-engineered UFO tech? We're currently still miles away [ufoevidence.org] fr
Re:Can you say "invented"? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Can you say "invented"? (Score:2)
Incas had no wheels (Score:2)
Re:Incas had no wheels (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Can you say "invented"? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Can you say "invented"? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Can you say "invented"? (Score:5, Interesting)
No, you're logic isn't consistent.
If we've captured an alien craft (I'm not dismissing the possibility) and they were far more advanced than us they would have a somewhat stable technology base.
OK let's run with the possibility: so we study the systems onboard and find out they're using transistors. Now it's 50 years later and we find out they were using cross-bar latches?
If they had cross-bar latch-based systems they wouldn't be have been using transistors in the first place.
Given all the work in nanotech in the past decade if you had to stake a claim you'd be better off saying that we 'stole' transistors than these cross-bar latches. But then we'd be about to have better technology than the Aliens and our European friends still can't land a probe on the nearest planet.
Now what's really interesting is that HP comes out with this days after dissolving their Itaniac partnership with Intel, the pioneers of the transistor.
Re:Can you say "invented"? (Score:5, Insightful)
If they had cross-bar latch-based systems they wouldn't be have been using transistors in the first place.
We still use vacuum tubes and electromechanical relays alongside transistors. Perhaps crossbar latch technology simple can't handle large enough currents to interface well with the macroscopic world, so the aliens needed to use transistors to switch relatively massive currents up into the microamps...
So, no doubt in another 50 years, we'll find another layer of alien tech we have finally reached the manufacturing capability of making use of, and we can get down to using some cool property of the d orbital geometry as stressed in negative Scandium ions. No doubt the NSA's xenoassimilatory researchers missed this at the present time, since they considered it a mere impurity in the semiconductor substrate.
Re:Can you say "invented"? (Score:5, Funny)
No offense to the original poster, but this is not exactly a compliment. It's like saying, "Your dog's ass smells the best of any dog's ass I've ever smelled."
Why thank you!
Have you ever smelled a dog's ass? (Score:3, Insightful)
Haven't you ever seen two dogs meeting in the street? The first thing they do is to smell each other's ass. That's because a dog's ass has an absolutely wonderful smell! It must be true, how could a hundred million dogs be wrong?
Re:Can you say "invented"? (Score:3, Funny)
Geez, nobody can think through a problem logically around here.
The Klingon UFO had the transistors. The Vulcan UFO had the cross-bar latch. They collided inside Earths gravity well and both crashed in the southwest US 50 years ago. We just couldn't figure out the more advanced Vulcan tech.
Duh!
Re:Can you say "invented"? (Score:2)
Re:Can you say "invented"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Can you say "invented"? (Score:2)
(just ignore those MIB agents standing right behind you)
Obviously it's Star Trek's "transtator" (Score:2)
Obviously (from the names) we're talking about the "transtator" of Star Trek fame.
Bones (or Kirk, or some other crewperson or person from another of the fleet) must have lost another communicator on one of the trips back in time to Earth, as he did on that Mob-run planet in _A Piece of the Action_.
Re:Can you say "invented"? (Score:2)
Vacuum tubes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Vacuum tubes (Score:2)
Re:Vacuum tubes (Score:2)
But then what will you use for heat in the winter?
Re:Vacuum tubes (Score:2)
Don't get rid of your vacuum tubes (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Vacuum tubes (Score:3)
Will this change how we watch porn? (Score:2, Funny)
Hah! (Score:3, Funny)
Moore's Law: "components" (Score:5, Insightful)
If you look at the orignial paper [intel.com], Moore is talking about "components," not specifically "transistors." There's no semantic reason why this couldn't continue to apply to the new technology.
Be sure to also read.. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Be sure to also read.. (Score:4, Informative)
Crossbar Latches explained (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Be sure to also read.. (Score:2)
Sounds like the name of some local prog rock band (Score:2, Funny)
QUANTUM TRANSISTOR AND THE CROSSBAR LATCH
with special guests
SIGNAL
$10 cover, must be 21 to attend
Doomsayers Wrong Again (Score:4, Insightful)
Wires, wiring (doomsayers will rise again!) (Score:5, Insightful)
We already have enough trouble at 90nm with wiring, and it's only getting worse at 65nm.
This looks like a great leap in device technology, but we need similar advances in lithography to really use it.
Bremerman's limit and Bekenstein Bounds (Score:4, Informative)
I knew all that research I did for my novel might come in handy one day.
The theoretical limits of information and computational density (based on quantum density limitations and reletavistic constraints on signalling, i.e. speed-of-light limits) are Bremermann's Limit [humanknowledge.net] and the Bekenstein Bounds [livingreviews.org], and we're one hell of a long way away from that. Practical limitations may be an order of magnitude or two less
Re:Doomsayers Wrong Again (Score:2)
- Clive Rodney Fark, 1962
"Man will never travel to the moon without a rocket."
- Clive Rodney Fark, 1970
Not Legit (Score:5, Interesting)
Just pray it ends up passing all testing and becoming everything they expect. Otherwise we might end up with an Intel-like pentium division problem on our hands...
To be safe... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Not Legit (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not Legit (Score:4, Informative)
Remember, applied physics != engineering. It the engineering boys that expect that it works.
Re:Not Legit (Score:3, Insightful)
Intel recently announced a new transistor they made which could be switched faster than any other transistor. We're not going to be seeing any CPUs based on this technology for a long time, if ever.
HP... (Score:2, Insightful)
Faster, Smaller, and CHEAP? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Faster, Smaller, and CHEAP? (Score:2)
If it works... (Score:3, Interesting)
And they claim impressive (potential) performance gains... do the average computer user really need more than 4 Ghz? Or will the market for this new technology be supercomputer-class computers only?
Re:If it works... (Score:2)
Re:If it works... (Score:4, Informative)
Plus, 4 Ghz is not a measure of computing power. And of course, we do need more power than a 4ghz pentium4.
Lots of physics problems (think for example robotics) need to solve numerically differential equations, and that takes power.
Re:If it works... (Score:3, Funny)
Since it's a technical story... (Score:5, Informative)
EETimes story [eet.com]
It's Patent #6586965 [uspto.gov]
Another Source (Score:2)
Before a total /.ing, (Score:2)
Discovery? . . . Or Invention. (Score:3, Interesting)
If this pans out to be viable, it will be interesting to see if it is promoted as a scientific (i.e. open) discovery, or a patentable (i.e. closed) invention.
Re:Discovery? . . . Or Invention. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Crossbar latch? (Score:2, Funny)
(Cackling: Eye of GNUt and hair of GNOME, give me root and get me home!)
Amazing! (Score:2, Insightful)
People, check out their site [hp.com]. They do this kind of stuff all the time. It's research - not an actual product. Why aren't there stories like this every time they have a press release?
Check out this announcement [hp.com] that declares an extension of Moore's law for 50 years!
The Stock price went up, the Press Release worked. (Score:5, Interesting)
I read the Press Release and this "has the potential to"... My guess is that HP are suffering at the moment (AIX machines are cheaper and more powerful than HP-UX ones, guess which we are buying less of) and this Press Release was published as a way of boosting the stock price.
Given that HP are dropping PA-Risc in favour of Itanium and that Intel appear to be dropping Itanium, HP seem to be dropping out of the large Unix market. I am sure that the PC Server market is good to them but surely diversification is the better way to stay competitive? Before anyone suggests it, there are some things that you just can't do as efficiently on lots of little servers that you can do on one larger server. For example distributed databases have locking issues that monolithic ones don't, and some of our legacy applications are still single threaded in parts.
Z.
The problem is leakage. (Score:5, Informative)
As near as I can tell, what they've done here is implement levels of titanium and platinum nano-wires which pass each at right angle. However, to prevent leakage, at the crossover points they are held apart by Rotaxan molecules.
Rotaxan molecules are organic, and have this nifty little molecular ring which enables them to be conductive or not based on its position. Thus, you get your binary switch. This little animal is the "crossbar latch," apparently. And it can be done in something like 40 nanometers, making it scads smaller than current conductive strips.
Unfortunately, I'm having a great deal of trouble tracking down technical details. HP wants to keep its secrets, obviously, but Berkely and Stanford should be a little more forthcoming, think I. Anyone have links to more technical information? It would be greatly appreciated...
Leakage refers to GATES, JUNCTIONS and SWITCHING (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The problem is leakage. (Score:3, Informative)
Link to Description (Score:2, Informative)
A molecular crossbar latch is provided, comprising two control wires and a signal wire that crosses the two control wires at a non-zero angle to thereby form a junction with each control wire. Each junction forms a switch and the junction has a functional dimension in nanometers. The signal wire selectively has at least two different voltage states, ranging from a 0 state to a 1 state, wherein there is an asymmetry with respect to the direction of current flow from the signal wire
10 Hz switching (Score:2)
White Paper? (Score:2)
As always, save the bad news for last (Score:5, Informative)
- Mean operations til failure: ~100
- Switching speed: ~100/sec
So they just need to improve its reliability by a factor of 10^16 or so, the switching speed only by a factor of 10^7 or so.Re:As always, save the bad news for last (Score:4, Insightful)
crossbar amps (Score:2, Funny)
Here's a bit more on the technology (Score:2)
Re:Here's a bit more on the technology (Score:2)
http://www.cs.caltech.edu/cbsss/pdf/SniderG/Nano ArchI.ppt
No Space in 'NoArchI'
yea...when I'm 70 years old (I'm currently 35) (Score:3, Funny)
It's unfair to tease me and then never come out with the stuff!
Goddamit! (Score:2)
Carly's going to be really angry... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Cool (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Cool (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cool (Score:3, Funny)
Yep. After that no more thinking will be required. Just brute force everything. Chess, unsolved equations, protein folding, you name it. We won't need science any more.
Re:Cool (Score:2)
Re:Cool (Score:3, Insightful)
But what would happen to poor old encryption? would it be possible to have keys long enough to prevent brute force and short enough to encrypt quickly?
Quantum-proof PGP keys! (Score:2)
Re:Cool (Score:2)
Seems pretty hard to crack to me, well in fact.. it seems impossible.
Google for more info, I've been pretty breif since I'm not an expert on how it works.
Re:Cool (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Cool (Score:2)
It would be quite interesting for sure. I'm just imagining the computer games we could have.
Re:Cool (Score:3, Funny)
With quantum computers, however, (Score:4, Funny)
you could simultaneously simulate a giant gorilla throwing poop at a brick wall, a stucco wall, a steel wall, and a glass wall, although you would have to stipulate the condition which would select the simulation results you actually get - such as which wall yields the largest splatter. That would obviously be the last calculation we would ever need.
(A lot of people don't realize that only one of the 2^n calculations is returned, but one can conditionalize which calculation is returned, so that ultimately only the "useful" calculation is returned. All of the other calculations are sent to our unlucky quantum brothers in other universes. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the cosmic backround radiation wasn't found to actually be such a residue from our lucky quantum brothers who have already developed quantum computing!)
((Yes, I'm just kidding.))
How much force is brute? (Score:4, Insightful)
The amount of computing that can be called "brute force" varies enourmosly between different problems.
For instance take the problem that Gauss is presumed to have solved in elementary school: add all numbers from 1 to 100. Gauss realized that the sequence can be broken into 50 pairs, 1 and 100, 2 and 99, etc, every which one adds to 101, so the answer is 101*50=5050. That's one example where we know one simple logical solution that takes much less computing effort than the more obvious addition of every number in the series.
OTOH, there are many other problems for which the only logical solution known requires a lot of computation. One well-known example is the four-color map theorem. Do you really believe that this theorem has been proved with "just" brute force, without the use of "science"?
I'm not an expert in the field, so I might be talking bullshit here, but as I understand it, there are problems in group theory where one can demonstrate formally that the only solution requires an amount of computation that's suspiciously close to "brute" force. The four-color map problem I mentioned required 1200 hours of computation when it was first solved in 1975.
Yeah, But... (Score:3, Insightful)
It'll be region coded. All the real power and functionality you want will be available in another region.
Life sucks and then you upgrade.
Re:Cool (Score:5, Informative)
Cal Tech has a <a href=http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~westside/quantum-
Re:Cool (Score:2)
Re:Cool (Score:3)
HP got a patent for this in July of 2003 (in patent #6,586,965 [uspto.gov]), filed Oct 2001. What is news is that they've successfully demonstrated it working.
Re:Cool (Score:4, Funny)
Bah, I'll never use a nanoscale latch computer. My transistor computer sounds warmer and less sterile! Plus it distorts prettily...
Re:Cool (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it won't.
Quantum computing (which has very little to do with the parent article) will change the way we think about computationally "hard" problems. Things like prime factorization, things like NP-completeness, things like cryptography.
But quantum computing will not replace the general-purpose Turing-complete model of computation we currently use. We will more likely see the idea of a quantum-coprocessor, something that you can interact with through a conventional CPU.
The problem with quantum computing involves the complexity of doing simple tasks... Yeah, it can factor absolutely mind-boggling numbers in one unit of time. It also takes that same one unit of time to figure out 1 + 1 = 2. The problem there involves the length of that unit of time - Between loading a state onto a set of qubits, them almost instantanously solving the problem, then reading the state off of them, you could have done potentially billions of cycles of normal CPU ops (no, I don't have a time-scale to quote for this, but I would consider it exceedingly optimistic to hope we eventually get it down to the millisecond level).
This development has so much potential because it points to a very, very major leap in the size of what we would currently consider a transistor... From 90nm, used by Intel and AMD's absolute latest mass-production facilities, down to a few nanometers. This means lower power requirements, faster CPU clocks, and much better areal density of functional units (getting down into the range of a few dozen atoms per switch, rather than hundreds of thousands at 90nm). The linked article also vaguely alludes to easier manufacturing techniques, but skimps on that one.
NP-Complete not effected by quantum computing (Score:3)
Interesting as well is that the factoring problem that made quantum computing famous has never actually been proven to be hard on a classical computer. This is to say, it is perfectly possible that factoring can be done on a regular computer just as fast as a quantum computer.
Re:Cool (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not being cynical here, I'm being realistic. I work on a large project, and software complexity is our ac
Re:Cool (Score:4, Funny)
Re:More? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:More? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:HP Quantum Science Research group ? (Score:2)
Re:HP Quantum Science Research group ? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:HP Quantum Science Research group ? (Score:2)
The most profitable application for this new technology will be the creation of control chips for toner cartridges that will be impossible for third-party manufacturers emulate using ordinary transistors.
Like all big companies do... (Score:2)
On the other hand, imagine inlaid crossbar latches on a printing matrix. Higher accuracy... Imagine 4 billion DPI - full color?
Re:For those whose hate patents.... (Score:2)
Unlike one-click shopping, etc.
I'd be happy to pay royalties for when I eventually buy a CPU with it.
Re:Great - someday we have faster computer (Score:3)
Perhaps because the export $$$ those rural areas generate go some way to pay for the huge import bills that cities generate.