Future Architectures

Question 1

Name some open source hardware achitectures

Answer 1

Sky130 open cells
OpenLANE

Question 2

What will the problem be if transistors keep getting smaller ?

Answer 2

They will eventually reach the size of an atom

Question 3

Why do we use fibre optics over copper cables ?

Answer 3

Electricity speed in copper: 280,000,000m/s
Photon speed: 299,792,458m/s

Question 4

What is an optical correlator

Answer 4

A computer that is designed to speed up the Fourier transform calculations

Question 5

Transistor vs ion channel

Answer 5

Transistors are similar to Ion channels.
Electro-chemical forces, switch on/off, use different elements

Question 6

Name a commercialiser of optical correlators

Answer 6

Optalysys, Nick New

Question 7

Logic gates vs Neurons

Answer 7

Both use chemical switch and result in 1 or 0

Question 8

Copper wires vs chemical signals

Answer 8

Copper wires are different than chemical signals but work in the same way. They are more accurate and faster.

Question 9

PCB or Cortex

Answer 9

Very similar. 2D layout with many 3D wire bundles conenct areas.

Question 10

What is a microcircuit ?

Answer 10

Simple machine made of several compute units, repeated in many places