New 3D Chip Combines Computing and Data Storage

[Megalith]

MIT has developed a 3D Chip that integrates CPU and memory to sidestep the communication bottleneck seen in traditional setups, where separate chips are coupled by limited connections. Carbon nanotubes and resistive RAM (RRAM) were used in concert to create the chip: ultra-dense wires between the various layers are used to connect the two, at densities that no motherboard could possibly reach.

Instead of relying on silicon-based devices, the chip uses carbon nanotubes, which are sheets of 2-D graphene formed into nanocylinders, and resistive random-access memory (RRAM) cells, a type of nonvolatile memory that operates by changing the resistance of a solid dielectric material. The researchers integrated over 1 million RRAM cells and 2 million carbon nanotube field-effect transistors, making the most complex nanoelectronic system ever made with emerging nanotechnologies. The RRAM and carbon nanotubes are built vertically over one another, making a new, dense 3-D computer architecture with interleaving layers of logic and memory.

 

[Pusher of Buttons]

That seems to be the future....more and more integrated on-chip. When -do- we hit "peak silicon"? It seems they keep eeking more out of it but the window has to be closing faster and faster.

 

[liveload]

Can it run Quake?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch;
I wonder what kind thermal footprint that RRAM has. Anything with "Resistive" in the name immediately brings heat loss to mind.

 

[boosnie]

Can it run Quake?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch;
I wonder what kind thermal footprint that RRAM has. Anything with "Resistive" in the name immediately brings heat loss to mind.

It's not that kind of resistance.
It's more of an conductive/non conductive situation rather than current dissipating/not dissipating one.