And while I decided against posting an 'April Fool's' piece today, Brian Bergstein, an AP Technology Writer tells us a story about IBM's continuing foray into Autonomic Computing -- this time on the hardware frontier -- that is indeed 'stranger than fiction' -- Self-Configuring Chips Part of IBM Vision. According to Brian:
"Here's how it would work. Continually running electrical current through a tiny circuit can cause its materials to erode, as individual atoms get stripped and dragged away by the electricity. Eventually the metal breaks.
Chip designers got around the problem by carefully choosing a blend of metals. Now, Meyerson said, IBM has developed a way to make the metal erosion happen at will - when software running the chip determines that part of the circuitry needs cutting or tuning.
"It's a bit frightening to the typical designer," Meyerson said.
He said early versions of the self-changing chips have been tested at IBM, which, like other computing companies, is pursuing means of making systems "autonomic," or self-healing and self-regulating. Meyerson said fully realized versions of the morphing chips would emerge in the next decade."
No fooling! (-:=
K-Collector Topics: Atom Autonomic Computing Hardware IBM