Discovery suggests new promise for nonsilicon computer transistors
Once deemed suitable only for high-speed communication systems, an alloy called InGaAs might one day rival silicon in high-performance computing.
Lighting up the ion trap
Fiber optics built into a chip can deliver all the laser light needed to control ions for quantum computing and sensing.
How to detect life on Mars
Scientists from the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Genomes instrument team develop method to detect the tiniest traces of life on other planetary bodies.
Technique streamlines fabrication of 2-D circuits
Growing material directly onto substrates and recycling chip patterns should enable faster, simpler manufacturing.
Integrating optical components into existing chip designs
Technique would allow addition of optical communication components to existing chips with little modification of their designs.
Researchers develop flexible, stretchable photonic devices
Light-based devices could be used as biomedical sensors or as flexible connectors for electronics.
Using chip memory more efficiently
System for generating ad hoc “cache hierarchies” increases processing speed while reducing energy consumption.
Practical parallelism
System enables large speedups — as much as 88-fold — on common parallel-computing algorithms.
A big leap toward tinier lines
Self-assembly technique could lead to long-awaited, simple method for making smaller microchip patterns.
Commercializing integrated photonics
AIM Photonics fall meeting attendees tackle plans for making computer chips with integrated optical devices and developing a regional workforce.
Cache management improved once again
New version of breakthrough memory management scheme better accommodates commercial chips.
Toward hack-proof RFID chips
New technology could secure credit cards, key cards, and pallets of goods in warehouses.
Self-stacking nanogrids
Polymer nanowires that assemble in perpendicular layers could offer route to tinier chip components.
First new cache-coherence mechanism in 30 years
More efficient memory-management scheme could help enable chips with thousands of cores.
Silicon photonics meets the foundry
Lionel Kimerling, Rajeev Ram, and other MIT researchers explore practical ways to bring optical interconnection toward and directly onto chips.