Posts tagged Self

The Processor of a computer is the central hub for a computers inner workings.  The CPU (as it is also called)  is sort of like a massive transfer station for information as it sends one stream of data from a specific input to its corresponding output thus sending information to the right place.  As technology has evolved the CPU has been  minimized considerably from a few racks of vacuum tubes to millions of transistors inside a something not much larger than a square inch.  Although size and performance have improved considerably since the dawn of the computer, the CPU has remained a very fragile piece of hardware and if something goes wrong with it, your out of a few hundred bucks.  But recently a team of researchers called CRISP (Cutting edge Reconfigurable ICs for Stream Processing) has been developing a self repairing multi-core CPU that adjust how it works based on how intact it is.  If one core is over tasked, the other cores fill in and do its job thus preventing the damage of that core.  In addition to that if one core goes sour, the other ones will do the work so you still have a working CPU.  Now it isn’t going to repair itself if you smash it with a hammer but it is very good at protecting itself and making up for lost power.  This CPU will probably have many others like it after words, until we eventually get a processor that can take a few bullets, catch on fire, be drowned in corrosive acid, and still be running the most demanding programs well.  We may be far away from that at the moment but team CRISP is definitely setting us down the right path.