Self-healing chips can survive repeated laser blasts
1 min read
Engineers from the California Institute of Technology have successfully created a chip with the ability to repair itself from serious damage.
The chip the team created is a power amplifier with millimetre wave frequencies. To make it self healing, the researchers created and installed a custom built asic unit to continually monitor the internal health of the chip.
Having already been programmed with the optimum characteristics of the chip, the asic unit was optimised to use the data it collects to repair the chip and return to the programmed state using the system's actuators.
To test the system, the researchers fired a high power laser at the chips, and then observed as they automatically repaired themselves and started operating again.
"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," said Ali Hajimiri, a Professor of Electrical Engineering at Caltech.
"We had literally just blasted half the amplifier and vapourised many of its components, such as transistors, and it was able to recover to nearly its ideal performance."
As an added bonus, the researchers also found that the self healing chips conserved considerably more power than the normal ones, while also being more reliable performers.
"Bringing this type of electronic immune system to integrated circuit chips opens up a world of possibilities," concluded Hajimiri. "It is truly a shift in the way we view circuits and their ability to operate independently.
"They can now both diagnose and fix their own problems without any human intervention, moving one step closer to indestructible circuits."
