

Atomic switch networks – design of a complex system for natural computing - escape_goat
http://iopscience.iop.org/0957-4484/26/20/204003/article

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escape_goat
OP here with a few disclosures.

Firstly, the paper is paywalled, but there is an article discussing it at
[http://phys.org/news/2015-05-scientists-atomic-scale-
hardwar...](http://phys.org/news/2015-05-scientists-atomic-scale-hardware-
natural.html).

Secondly, after double-checking the abstract, I made the editorial decision to
replace the subtitle "nanoarchitectonic design of a complex system for natural
computing" with "design of a functional device". My reasoning was that the
original subtitle seemed hopelessly opaque (outside the field, presumably),
and that the development of a testable device seemed to be the most
interesting news.

Thirdly, I know next to nothing about the topic, and am only guessing that
this is newsworthy. My introduction to the news was from a post at phys.org by
Lisa Zyga ([http://phys.org/news/2015-05-scientists-atomic-scale-
hardwar...](http://phys.org/news/2015-05-scientists-atomic-scale-hardware-
natural.html)). Phys.org is a frequently breathy science news site, but Ms.
Zyga has been blogging there for years and is a decent science reporter.

I am hoping that this post will be of some interest to those with domain
knowledge, and that I can learn from any discussion or criticism of the paper.

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vpribish
clever, wish we could read the research. Seems that the aim is to create a
higher density (and presumably larger scale) medium for computing than can be
made with traditional fabrication. trade-off (opportunity?) is that it
computes much differently - you learn to compute with the switches you get,
rather than building the switches you need. probably has some nasty
sensitivities to voltage, and RF, and heat, and vibration - but that's just
engineering :)

Have they demonstrated much better density yet? (from skimming one of the
researchers' other papers they have gotten 10^8 switches/cm^2 which is not as
dense as the transistors on a high-end graphics card. not that they are really
directly comparable anyhow, this would be like a special coprocessor for
neural-stuff.

here's a good overview with quotes from one of the above paper's authors:
[http://nanotechweb.org/cws/article/tech/61049](http://nanotechweb.org/cws/article/tech/61049)

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quanpod
I did research with Adam & Jim back in undergrad @ UCLA - I had a first stab
attempt at creating these atomic switches & failed miserably. I'll see if I
can get them to comment if there's a specific question here.

