It’s not all about the speed, but that helps
Everyone has seen the IBM commercials that tout a computer’s ability to reconfigure itself depending on what it’s being asked to do. But such “on-the-fly” circuit changes aren’t just the vision of the corporate world. The academic sector is also a major partner in bringing such vision to reality by getting federal funding for just such research. In the latest edition of BusinessWeek Online, the article “Mighty Morphing Power Processors” points to the University of Texas and the Ohio Supercomputer Center as two institutions heavily involved. There is a lot at stake in this next generation, reconfigurable chip. The article states
IBM is hardly the only chipmaker chasing morphing semiconductors. Virtually every major supplier of so-called logic chips is working on some such notion, including Hewlett-Packard, Intel, NEC, Philips Electronics, and Texas Instruments. A dozen or more startups are in the race as well, including Velogix, picoChip Designs, and MathStar.
