Artificial synapses 10.000 times faster than biological synapses

A team of scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has developed a resistor that is a natural one brain synapse which, according to the authors, is a thousand times smaller and ten thousand times faster than its biological counterpart. The researchers described their approach, particularly the idea, when designing artificial neural networks Balancing memory persistence and processing speed, in a publication in Science.

They designed an element whose conductivity was determined by the introduction or removal of Protons into a phosphosilicate glass (PSG) channel. In a way, this mimics the behavior of biological synapses that ions for transmitting signals across the gap between two Neurons use. The device is equipped with three connectors, two of which are the input and the output of the Synapse represent, while the third serves to apply an electric field that excites protons to move from the reservoir to the PSG channel or vice versa, depending on the direction of the electric field. More protons in the channel increase its resistance.

Image Source: Pixabay ; Science

With the new technology, 500 TB of data can be stored on a glass plate. That's more than 20.000 Blu-ray discs

Optica has been developing a new one 5D recording technology announced, with which up to 500 TB of data can be stored on a glass platter the size of a CD. However, we will have to wait a long time for its introduction to general use.

The new 5D recording technology is based on a solution that "burns" data onto the data carrier in a completely new way. Each file is recorded on three layers of very small points, and the name of this solution is no coincidence - each point has its own size, orientation, and position in the three traditional dimensions, and they are all different.

Samsung introduces powerful and energy-efficient DDR5 memory chip

Samsung Electronics has the development of a 512GB DDR5 Memory module announced. This is the first DRAM unit of the company's manufactured to the latest DDR5 standard set by the JEDEC Solid State Technology Association last July. With High-K-Metal-Gate-Technology (HKMG) manufactured hardware offers data transfer rates of up to 7200 Mbit / s, more than twice as fast as DDR4.

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The first tablet on the market with Linux OS

jing pad a1 - that is the name of the "first Consumer Linux tablets". The hardware, equipped with an 11-inch screen with a resolution of 2.368 × 1.728 pixels in 4: 3 format, was developed by the Chinese startup jingling built. According to reviews in specialist sites, the system is very similar to Apple's iPadOS. The version of Linux used in the new device is called JingOS.

Pharmaceutical companies are investing in quantum computing to find new drugs

Recent actions by IT giants like Google and pharmaceutical companies suggest that the first really useful application of quantum computers related to working on new calculations drugs could be. quantum computers will - at least theoretically - have a performance that cannot be achieved by classic computers. This follows directly from the principle of how they work. In addition, a small excursion to the Qubit world:

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A little nano-origami and there is a record-breaking chip

A team of physicists from the University of Sussex in the UK published the construction of a novel in the ACS Nano Journal microchips on the basis of graphene and other single-layer materials (2D) with a record-breaking small size. As the authors explain the achievement, it was produced by "crinkling" layers of graphene in what they call Nano origami describe.

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Space and influence on computers. The effects? e.g. wrong election result ...

On average, your computer makes a mistake every few days for no apparent reason. It is not a hacker attack, but the effect of invisible radiation that can alter the outcome of an election or lead to a plane crash.

In the Belgian federal elections in 2003, citizens voted electronically - with magnetic cards that each voter received. In the city of Schaerbeek, the unpopular candidate Maria Vindevoghel won. It would not have been exceptional if she hadn't won far more votes than there are eligible voters in her constituency. All used Magnetic cards were collected and the votes counted again. The support that the candidates received has not changed, with the exception of Mrs Vindevoghel, who this time received exactly 4096 fewer votes. A further investigation determined the cause of the error, which was referred to in the official documents as "spontaneous setting of the bit in the thirteenth position in the computer memory". To understand this mysterious explanation, one has to know how the computer stores information in its memory.

Image source: Pixabay

Computer storage at the individual atom level

The engineers at the University of Texas at Austin have developed the smallest data storage device yet. The study, the results of which were recently published in Nature Nanotechnology (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41565-020-00789-w) published is based on a discovery made two years ago when a record-breaking thinner device called the "atomizer" was built to store information. In this new work, the scientists have further reduced the size and reduced the cross-sectional area to just one square nanometer.

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Co-design of electronics with microfluidics for more sustainable cooling

Thermal management is one of the most important challenges for the future of electronics. With the steadily increasing data generation and communication rate as well as the constant urge to reduce the size and cost of industrial converter systems, the power density of electronics has increased. As a result, cooling, with its enormous energy and water consumption, is having an ever greater impact on the environment, and new technologies are needed to generate heat in a more sustainable way - that is, using less water and energy. Embedding the liquid cooling directly into the chip is a promising approach for more efficient thermal management. However, even with the most modern approaches, electronics and cooling are treated separately, so that the full energy-saving potential of the embedded cooling remains unused.

Co-designed microfluidically cooled electrical device

Source image: Nature 585, 211-216 (2020)