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Notice: GeekPress is back up and running, thanks to Paul! It's still a not-so-serious tech news blog, but the format is significantly looser. Diana, having given up programming for philosophy, has her own philosophical blog NoodleFood. More of her work can be found at DianaHsieh.com.

 

Asynchronous chips = next big thing?

8:50:31 am mst / 5 March 2001 found by paul / filed in inventions / source NY Times 116 hits / 1 comment / 0 e-mails

An overview of Ivan Sutherland and his work on asynchronous chips (i.e., chips that don't require an internal clock). He and his team at Sun Microsystems claim to have made major breakthroughs that "will lead to a paradigm shift in modern computer design."

Given that his papers will be presented at a conference next week, we won't have to wait long to see if this is hype or for real.

Comments

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Non-Turing-Machines by MysteriousStranger 2:24:11 pm mst / 5 March 2001 / # 1

One of the interesting things about an asynchronous design is that it is one of the things which can't be simulated by a Turing Machine. That means that it *might* be possible for it to solve problems which a Turing Machine can't solve. (It might not, too; but the point is that it's no longer possible to use isomorphism with the "Stopping Problem" to prove that it's impossible.) Also interesting is that human brains are asynchronous. -- Steven C. Den Beste