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[Data]

Snowman from the Hal forum found these videos, I had to post them here. Snowcrash you are going to love these.

Quick overview:

They are going to be able to make a computer with processors and memory much faster and with much more memory than ours now and all on one chip. This could happen in just a few years from now.

Put me down for one of them.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZAHG3COYYA" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZAHG3COYYA</a>


<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKGhvKyjgLY" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKGhvKyjgLY</a>

[Snowcrash]

I have heard of a 4th electronic parameter (in addition to resistance, capacitance and inductance)

It is memristance. Didn't know TiO2 (titanium dioxide) was a semiconductor.
TiO2 is very common. Basically anything white. White paint, white ceramic coating (toilets, sinks etc), white toothpaste).

Very interesting...

[Snowcrash]

If you don't want to watch all the 2nd video then watch it from 29:14

If they get this tech to work 1st off we'll get fast, non volatile memory.
Then there are logic / processing implications.
Then it can also work as a neural network with 3d multi layered chips. Very terminator. 

It can replace DRAM, GDRAM, hdd, CD, flash even just go next to the processor on it's die.

WOW

[Data]

Quite incredible, opens lots of new doors, I think its interesting that its going to happen around about the same time as the chip manufacturers hit the limit, like the guy in the video said they cant go much further with memory and chip technology as it is now.

[Carl2]

  Watched two video's,  It should solve all of man's problems.
Carl2

[Snowcrash]

HP Labs teams up with Hynix to manufacture memristors, plans assault on flash memory in 2013

The link is here but the headline is more interesting. 

[Snowcrash]

Not sure if this link is connected to memristors but it's also by IBM. Very few facts on their technology.

Brave new world here we go.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14574747

[DaveMorton]

I'm not certain if they use memristers in those new circuits either, Snowy, but I did find the article interesting.

Also found a typo, too (at least I think I did)

One chip has 262,144 programmable synapses, while the other contains 65,636 learning synapses.

I think their count of learning synapses is off by a hundred.
(for those not familiar with the "inner workings" of computers, 99.999999999...% of all addressing boundaries - the means by which computers know how to access specific bits of data - are binary-based, meaning that 65536 is expressed as 1 0000 0000 0000 0000 in binary - a suitable number.
65636 is 1 0000 0000 0110 0100 in binary, which... this is going to turn into a lecture in binary if I don't stop now, and such a lecture is boring, so I'll quit before I launch into "professor mode". Suffice it to say that I'm quite certain that the statement I quoted above is, indeed, a typo.)

I also wonder if these synapses use, or take advantage of, or are even possibly plagued with the effects of state-change due to nearby magnetic fields, as recent neurological research studies have found just may be the case in synapses within the human brain. It would be interesting, if they did.

[Snowcrash]

262,144 is 4 X 65536, so yeah, typo indeed.

[Diesel]

Oh, of course. I knew that. As someone who know's Jack about the internal's of a computer, could someone translate for me, and the rest of the world. In layman's, what the hell does that mean.

[Snowcrash]

When you play with computers several numbers keep cropping up and you get to know them.

Teacher mode on...

They are all binary / base 2 / doubling numbers (±1 'cos 0 is sometimes a number)

2/4/8/16/32/64/128/256/512/1024/2048/4096/8192/16384/32768/65536
65535/65536 is 16 bit and very common.
4,294,967,295 is 32 bit and why old machines can't have more than 4 GB of memory (see signed data below). It is also the limit of IP addresses (how many computers you can address on the net [IP4=(4x8bit=32bit)]) and was reached earlier this year. IP6 is sort of here (48 bit)

Also on a side note, k = times 1000 in normal maths but is times 1024 in computers. So 1kB = 1024 bytes. 1MB = 1024kB = 1,048,576 bytes etc.

Teacher mode off...

Hope that's clearer. Just stop me if I ramble too much.

Edited my oops was 31 bit. DOH!

[DaveMorton]

To add to Snowy's excellent primer, and to point out a minor 'oops':

On the data end, there's a 'bit' (short for 'Binary digIT'), which is either 0 or 1. Eight of these bits (shown as a lower-case 'b') makes up a Byte (shown as an upper-case 'B'). Bytes range in value from 0 to 255 (which is 1111 1111 in binary) for a total of 256 possible values (including 0). From there we have the word, which is two bytes, or 16 bits (ranging from 0 to 65,535 in decimal {1111 1111 1111 1111 in binary} for a total of 65,536), and a Dword ("Double word") which is four bytes, or 32 bits, and has a maximum value of 4,294,967,295 (um, Snowy? while 2,147,483,648 is 32 bits, it's not the maximum value. In ' signed' binary {'signed' binary allows for positive/negative numbers, but it cuts the maximum 'positive' value in half} it's -1. I won't get into signed/unsigned binary, though. regular binary is confusing enough). From there we have other designations, but they're rarely used.

[Diesel]

Ah, now that's better, I thank-you both for your explanations. I bow to you clear superior intellect and experience. I must seem a complete IDIOT, for this I apologise. 

[DaveMorton]

No, Diesel. not a complete idiot. Parts seem to be missing.

Just kidding. We all have our strengths and weaknesses.

[Diesel]

Ah, so that would make me an incomplete, complete Idiot. I have worked hard to accomplish complete status, must try harder.

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