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Memcomputers: Faster, More Energy-Efficient Devices That Work Like a Human Brain

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[h=1]Memcomputers: Faster, More Energy-Efficient Devices That Work Like a Human Brain[/h]New types of electronic components, closer to neurons than to transistors, are leading to tremendously efficient and faster “memcomputing”
Jan 20, 2015 |By Massimiliano Di Ventra and Yuriy V. Pershin

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Adam Simpson[h=3]In Brief[/h]
  • Modern computers all use a unit that does calculations and a separate memory unit that holds programs and data. Shuttling information back and forth takes lots of energy and time.
  • A new idea, memcomputing works in a way that is similar to the neurons in the human brain, which form computing and memory storage units that are physically the same.
  • This could mean a giant leap in computer speed and efficiency, as well as new computing architectures, so scientists are trying to learn the best ways to use different memcomputing components.


[h=3][/h]
When we wrote the words you are now reading, we were typing on the best computers that technology now offers: machines that are terribly wasteful of energy and slow when tackling important scientific calculations. And they are typical of every computer that exists today, from the smartphone in your hand to the multimillion-dollar supercomputers humming along in the world's most advanced computing facilities.
We were writing in Word, a perfectly fine program that you probably use as well. To write “When we wrote the words you are now reading,” our computer had to move a collection of 0's and 1's—the machine representation of a Word document—from a temporary memory area and send it to another physical location, the central processing unit (CPU), via a bunch of wires. The processing unit transformed the data into the letters that we saw on the screen. To keep that particular sentence from vanishing once we turned our computer off, the data representing it had to travel back along that bunch of wires to a more stable memory area such as a hard drive.
This two-step shuffle happens because, at the moment, computer memory cannot do processing, and processors cannot store memory. It is a standard division of labor, and it happens even in fancy computers that do the fastest kind of calculating, called parallel processing, with multiple processors. The trouble is that each of these processors is still hobbled by this limitation.
Scientists have been developing a way to combine the previously uncombinable: to create circuits that juggle numbers and store memories at the same time. This means replacing standard computer circuit elements such as transistors, capacitors and inductors with new components called memristors, memcapacitors and meminductors. These components exist right now, in experimental forms, and could soon be combined into a new type of machine called a memcomputer.
Memcomputers could have unmatched speed because of their dual abilities. Each part of a memcomputer can help compute the answer to a problem, in a new, more efficient version of today's parallel computing. And because difficult problems are solved by the computer's memory and stored directly into that memory, they will also save all the energy that is currently required to transfer data back and forth within the machine. This brand-new type of computing architecture would change the way computers of all types operate, from the tiny chips in your phone to vast supercomputers. It is, in fact, a design that is close to the way the human brain works, holding memories and processing information in the same neurons.

These new memcomputing machines should be much swifter—taking mere seconds to do calculations that would take current machines decades—and smaller and use much less electricity. Complete memcomputers have not yet been built, but our experiments with the components indicate that they could have a huge impact on computer design, global sustainability, power use and our ability to answer vital scientific questions.

Memcomputers: Faster, More Energy-Efficient Devices That Work Like a Human Brain - Scientific American
 
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