Von Neumann Is Struggling

[erek]

"There always will be an element of control in every system we create. As a result, the von Neumann architecture is not going away. It is the most general-purpose computer possible, and that makes it indispensable. At the same time, a lot of the heavy computational lifting is moving to non-von Neumann architectures. Accelerators and custom cores can do a much better job with significantly less energy. More optimized memory architectures are also providing significant gains.

Still, that is just one design tradeoff. For devices that cannot have dedicated cores for every function they are likely to perform, there are some middle ground compromises, and the market for these remains robust. The other problem is that the programming model associated with the von Neumann architecture is so ingrained that it will take a long time before there are enough programmers who can write software for new architectures."

https://semiengineering.com/von-neumann-is-struggling/

 

[KD5ZXG]

Even when you fully separate program from data (Harvard) for performance or security reasons, you still need a backdoor to load or debug programs.

 

[KD5ZXG]

Suppose you secure that backdoor by physical access, such as a JTAG header. Seems secure, but is it?
Problem is engines like Java or Wozniak's Sweet16 that execute data as-if it were program, and that now
becomes wormable. Everything these days leans on such engines...