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.
Re:More accurate to say "More resilient chips"? (Score:4, Interesting)
Thank you, that was what I was about to say, massively redundant, cool but it does not actually repair itself back to the way it was before, as it 'heals' it uses up that ability.
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But that is a well understood problem on a macroscopic scale. The only thing they did war bring down the redundancy onto the chip. I don't think that it is that useful once a micrometeorite obliterates the entire chip.
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Usefulness for a purpose has disconnected but relevant bearing on how it works. Operational details specify what problems the technology can solve; there is overlap for bare function, but the details are important. In this case you could have a chip with an inherent structure that would self-regrow when current is applied if damage is not extensive and materials were present (i.e. cracks self-heal infinitely, uses electricity); or a blue-goo type chip that contains a reservoir of consumable raw material t
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It seems dumb to me to have unused functional units lying around. But if a chip could detect that a functional unit has failed (by cross-testing?) and then degrade performance by not using it, while continuing to operate so that I can at least get useful fault information, that would be a massive win.
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Thank you, that was what I was about to say, massively redundant, cool but it does not actually repair itself back to the way it was before, as it 'heals' it uses up that ability.
Not even new.
They have been building self-testing, redundant chips for years.
Here's a paper from 1982:
http://www.computer.org/csdl/trans/tc/1982/07/01676058.pdf [computer.org]
1988:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?reload=true&arnumber=3187 [ieee.org]
etc...
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Thank you. I thought that I had seen this before(years ago), but couldn't quite recall where
To be honest, I was impressed with the first redundant chips (decades ago.)
Obviously, someone very bright said, "We're stamping these circuits on the die; let's put in a self-test, and just stamp a whole bunch." Even the Apollo missions back in the "60s had redundant CPUs (albeit not single chips) that would 'vote' on decisions, and vote out the odd man.
I just can't figure out why this is 'news'... /.
Ah
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Yeah, that's what it sounds like, the chips "heal" in the same way that networks "heal" -- route around the slow/bad/dead parts -- rather than biological healing of replacing the dead/missing cells. I'm taking this to be the first steps towards artificial healing -- the chips (or networks for that matter) can close off the parts that are "bleeding" due to damage.
So, for now the chips are able to put up a rudimentary scab. Eventually, they may be able to take "local" resources (silicon, carbon, whatever) an
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> they don't really "heal," they just reroute around the damage
But it says it in the title! Twice! They are 'self healing' AND they repair themselves! It leaves no doubt!
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But it says it in the title! Twice!
But that sounded better.
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Does that make the broken-and-disconnected circuits scar tissue?
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You don't heal a machine, you repair it. methinks there's way too much anthropomorphising these days.
Yes, and it needs to stop because the language hates that.
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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.
Some of the biological processes also route around the damage, the brain being a good example.
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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.
The brain is known to reroute signals in order to restore lost functionality in stroke victims, so (without having read TFA) I would group this under healing.
I for one... (Score:1)
Oh never mind, it's just getting too easy nowadays.
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How ironic that despite you and I noticing how redundant that meme is getting on here, the "First Post" (below yours right now) quotes what you were _going_ to say, precisely!
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"A Team" (Score:1)
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.
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Agreed.
But still has interesting implications for, say, radiation-hardened hardware like space-travel. Of course, it's nothing they don't already have in terms of the overall process, but having it on-chip is yet-another factor that has to experience corruption before you need to replace the hardware.
Another nice step, but nothing miraculous.
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The thing is that "healing" grows something new to replace what was damaged. This thing does not do that and all the spares have the same risk of getting damaged.
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heal (hl)
v. healed, healing, heals v.tr. 1. To restore to health or soundness; cure. 2. To set right; repair: healed the rift between us. 3. To restore (a person) to spiritual wholeness.
there is nothing in the definition that implies the process by which it heals. I think you are missing a much more interesting implication of that article which is that an IC that can diagnose itself and then switch to an appropriate "spare" or re-route itself is prett
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However the definition implies restoration/repair of the defect. The thing from the OP just plugs in a spare and leaves the original broken. The only difference to component replacement is that the spare is already on the chip, and hence there is a hard limit on how often it can be done.
I also do not overlook the approach: It is pretty old, and there are reports of it from time to time. This is, at best, incremental research. Things like master-checker pairs of CPUs with some fail-over mechanism are well-kn
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Well, excitement is nice when there actually is something to get excited about. It it is just marketing BS blowing things out of proportion, I like to try to be the voice of reason. Sorry about that ;-)
Re:another non-story (Score:5, Funny)
Man, it makes me sick that people haven't taken the obvious step of giving the intricate metal layers and zones of dopant concentration on a silicon wafer the same modularity as 3.5 inch HDDs with hot-swap connectors... Scientists are so lazy.
Heck, why do we get worked up about integrated circuits at all? I saw Bell Labs demonstrate the same concept with discrete transistors before 1950, and they were basically just ripping off vacuum tubes...
Re:another non-story (Score:5, Funny)
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Maybe 25 years ago that would have been interesting by 1998 RAID was well known. There would be no pause in availability at all.
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So now a chip with built in redundancy can bypass damage, but without allowing for the bad section to be replaced. FAIL.
Fail? There's again some typical /. thinking: an invention can't be useful if it's not perfect in all ways, thus it's a complete fail.
This is still an invention that can add a nice amount of robustness to mission-critical chips.
Rerouting power (Score:1)
We all know what this will lead to....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQnwmEkEito
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Seriously, [Citation Needed].
This is one of the few occasions where the meme is actually the most logical response. Unless, of course, my sarcasm detector is malfunctioning again.
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Unless, of course, my sarcasm detector is malfunctioning again.
Don't worry, you can 3D print a new one soon.
Real Genius? (Score:2)
After reading CalTech and high-powered lasers, I could only think of a ragtag team of students like Mitch Taylor, Chris Knight, and Lazlo Hollyfeld implanting a two-way transceiver into Kent's dental work in order to thwart Hathaway's plans to embezzle funds from the DoD.
1 megabit RAM chip, 1980's (Score:1)
Can you say? (Score:1)
Obviously engineers don't watch movies (Score:2)
Maybe watching the Terminator and Matrix movies might stop this kind of scientific "discovery".
Ohhhh , , , (Score:1)
OH THANK GOD! its about time (Score:2)
My chips are always being damaged in specific places using high-powered lasers, and not the whole thing going up in a puff of smoke and small explosion if there is enough current.