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The silicon behind our lives (71)

Counting the invisible

Let's play a little game: how many electronic chips do you have in your home? Give it some thought.

Many people will answer something between 5-10: one for the TV, one for the remote, one for a computer, and 3-4 for the phones and tablets of the people in the household.

But there is much more technology hidden in plain sight. In fact, it's so interwoven to everyday life that we hardly even consider the chips within. Here are (some) examples: air-conditioning, smart home systems, kitchen equipment, smartwatches, audio systems, garage door controls, video game consoles, a camera (if you still have one), a router, electric toothbrush and/or shaver, coffee machine,...

The list seems endless and all of this, nearly magical, technology enables our modern way of life. For the fans of statistics, the average European household has now more than 20 connected devices - so the total number of electronic chips is probably higher.

Good 'ol Moore had a big idea

Making this technology so small, so affordable and so powerful was not an easy task. Today’s chips are built on features smaller than 10 nanometers — tens of thousands of times thinner than a human hair. These nano-scale chips can calculate way more information than we can even conceive and all of that can be made at massive scale.

This complex eco-system took long enough to reach its current point. When the whole computing industry was taking shape, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, made the prediction that computing power per device will keep increasing. Moore's law is still going strong to this day, albeit with a catch - to fulfill it, we integrate more functions on the same chip and integrate more chips to the same unit. 

What's after Moore?

However mystical, the current computing eco-system seems to be reaching its limits. Unstable geopolitics disrupt the delicate supply chains necessary for chip production, all while demand keeps increasing. But more importantly, we are approaching the limits of physics - sizes significantly smaller than human hair need to deal with quantum phenomena and this requires a totally different arsenal.

However the next step is not necessarily quantum. We can instead look inwards at the human brain.

With only ~20W of power, the human brain has outstanding pattern recognition capabilities. Designs inspired by our neural network, often called neuromorphic, could once again transform what computers can do. There has already been some research on this topic and one of the bright ideas is to use light for calculations instead of electrons, a concept known as photonics (photon + electronics).

Perhaps an innovation like low energy computing can actually power the sustainable transition. What is certain is that, apart from the computing fundamentals, such a paradigm shift will need more. Think of new computer architectures, new applications, new business ideas and perhaps new ethics. I am definitely eager to help contribute to building this future and I hope you are excited too!


 

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