Electronic chips self-heal after laser blast

It might sound like the stuff of science fiction, but a team of engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), for the first time ever, has developed just such self-healing integrated chips.

The team demonstrated this self-healing capability in tiny power amplifiers. The amplifiers are so small that 76 of the chips—including everything they need to self-heal—could fit on a single penny.

In perhaps the most dramatic of their experiments, the team destroyed various parts of their chips by zapping them multiple times with a high-power laser, and then observed as the chips automatically developed a work-around in less than a second.

“It was incredible the first time the system kicked in and healed itself. It felt like we were witnessing the next step in the evolution of integrated circuits,” says Ali Hajimiri, professor of electrical engineering. “We had literally just blasted half the amplifier and vaporized many of its components, such as transistors, and it was able to recover to nearly its ideal performance.


The team’s results appear in the March issue of IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques.


Read more

∞Posted on March 12, 2013

Source: futurity.org

Notes: 1,392 notes

Tags: science,tech,engineering,electronics,integrated chips,


Notes

  1. tmblrbookmarks reblogged this from science-junkie
  2. robdlt reblogged this from science-junkie
  3. aydree reblogged this from science-junkie and added:
    Incredible.
  4. runajoorun reblogged this from science-junkie
  5. walpurgisak reblogged this from shirushu and added:
    Ermahgerd nerdgasm
  6. polymethodic reblogged this from ajora
  7. ajora reblogged this from thescienceofreality
  8. brontideandlevin reblogged this from thescienceofreality
  9. theconstantabsurdity reblogged this from slayersa and added:
    ULTRON IS COMING
  10. voxnihilis reblogged this from youcancallmealfosho
  11. machusureway reblogged this from zombieboyshareshisthoughts
  12. youcancallmealfosho reblogged this from gorecoveredrampager
  13. sgiandubghswashbuckler reblogged this from zombieboyshareshisthoughts
  14. anger-rage-fury reblogged this from gorecoveredrampager
  15. slayersa reblogged this from zombieboyshareshisthoughts and added:
    Ok, now I’m really scared… #read
  16. morioromnisdies reblogged this from zombieboyshareshisthoughts
  17. madauntymilli reblogged this from zombieboyshareshisthoughts
  18. gorecoveredrampager reblogged this from zombieboyshareshisthoughts and added:
    We really need to develop self-repairing metal and find star gods to sell our souls to.
  19. zombieboyshareshisthoughts reblogged this from graylok
  20. tukeyakiba reblogged this from reonald
  21. reonald reblogged this from oxygen8
  22. oxygen8 reblogged this from daanetc
  23. sleepingintheflowers reblogged this from byhapnstance
  24. lokilaughs reblogged this from thescienceofreality
  25. runningdroid reblogged this from grinderbot
  26. ktobermanns reblogged this from goldenfinch
  27. goldenfinch reblogged this from grinderbot
Top of Page