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WTF is Orbital Computing?

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From the «houston-we-are-going-down» department:
Title: Physicist proposes a new type of computing at SXSW. Check out orbital computing
Author: Stacey Higginbotham
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 16:03:25 -0400
Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OmMalik/~3/wRq61gKK9bY/
Podcast Download URL: http://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/img_0560.jpg

The demand for computing power is constantly rising, but we’re heading to the
edge of the cliff in terms of increasing performance — both in terms of the
physics of cramming more transistors on a chip and in terms of the power
consumption. We’ve covered plenty of different ways that researchers are
trying to continue advancing Moore’s Law — this idea that the number of
transistors (and thus the performance) on a chip doubles every 18 months —
especially the far out there efforts that take traditional computer science
and electronics and dump them in favor of using magnetic spin[1], quantum
states[2] or probabilistic logic[3].

We’re going to add a new impossible that might become possible to that list
thanks to Joshua Turner, a physicist at the SLAC National Accelerator
Laboratory, who has proposed using the orbits of electrons[4] around the
nucleus of an atom as a new means to generate the binary states (the charge
or lack of a charge that transistors use today to generate zeros and ones) we
use in computing. He calls this idea orbital computing and the big takeaway
for engineers is that one can switch the state of an electron’s orbit 10,000
times faster than you can switch the state of a transistor used in computing
today.

That means you can still have the features of computing in that you use
binary programming, but you just can compute more in less time. To get us to
his grand theory, Turner had to take the SXSW audience through how computing
works, how transistors work, the structure of atoms, the behavior of
subatomic particles and a bunch of background on X-rays.
[image 6][5]

SLAC Linac Coherent Light Source X-ray laser. Photo by Signe Brewster/Gigaom

X-rays are actually his specialty at SLAC, where he oversees experiments in
the Linear accelerator to take pictures of subatomic particles in action.
Those experiments have also led to the discovery of new materials and
visualizations that could help computing in the nearer term. One is the
discovery of a material that allows electrons to switch states really quickly
that could improve magnetic random access memory speeds by a factor of
thousand.

Another breakthrough is the ability to see what spin (positive or negative)
electrons in a magnetic field have taken — which is akin to seeing what’s
happening inside a transistor while it’s working. This helps engineers take
the guesswork out of what some of the new breakthroughs in chip research
might mean in the real world. One of the problems with working at the
subatomic layer is that you can’t see what you are doing without expensive
equipment.

A third breakthrough is the use of a lower-power terahertz laser to prompt a
shift in the state of a magnetic spin of electrons. Like both the new
material and the concept of orbital computing, this is a way to switch the
state of an electron faster. The primary advantage here is that while we’ve
known for a while that a laser can speed up a state change (and thus, speed
up computing) those lasers require a lot of power. The terahertz breakthrough
offers a boost in speed without requiring a huge power draw.

While the talk was highly technical, it was also engaging and Turner imbued
it with a sense of wonder. He ended by reminding us that even as we’re toting
small computers in our pockets or commercializing quantum computers, there is
so much we don’t know about getting more performance and more insights out of
computers. So while there’s a renewed interest in space as the “final
frontier,” he argued that there is as much wonder to be had at the smaller
scale.

“The frontier is really all around us,” he said. “There is so much we don’t
understand and there are tons of experiments that we can use to get at the
fundamental nature of quantum mechanics.”
[image 7]

[image 9][8]

Related research and analysis from Gigaom Research:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial[10].

* Why design is key for future hardware innovation[11]
* The fourth quarter of 2012 in cloud[12]
* How direct-access solutions can speed up cloud adoption[13]

[image 15][14][image 16]

Links:
[1]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7ij8lv32EQ (link)
[2]: http://gigaom.com/2013/10/11/google-nasa-explain-quantum-computing-and-making-mincemeat-of-big-data/ (link)
[3]: http://gigaom.com/2011/03/16/chip-makers-sacrifice-accuracy-for-energy-efficiency/ (link)
[4]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_configuration (link)
[5]: http://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/img_0560.jpg (link)
[6]: http://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/img_0560.jpg?w=708&h=472 (image)
[7]: http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=gigaom.com&blog=14960843&post=823607&subd=gigaom2&ref=&feed=1 (image)
[8]: http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?iu=/1008864/Gigaom_RSS_300x250&sz=300x250&c=177236 (link)
[9]: http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ad?iu=/1008864/Gigaom_RSS_300x250&sz=300x250&c=177236 (image)
[10]: http://research.gigaom.com/?utm_source=cloudutm_medium=editorial&utm_campaign=auto3&utm_term=823607+physicist-proposes-a-new-type-of-computing-at-sxsw-check-out-orbital-computing&utm_content=shigginbotham (link)
[11]: http://research.gigaom.com/report/sector-roadmap-hardware-design-innovation/?utm_source=cloudutm_medium=editorial&utm_campaign=auto3&utm_term=823607+physicist-proposes-a-new-type-of-computing-at-sxsw-check-out-orbital-computing&utm_content=shigginbotham (link)
[12]: http://pro.gigaom.com/2013/01/cloud-and-data-fourth-quarter-2012-analysis/?utm_source=cloudutm_medium=editorial&utm_campaign=auto3&utm_term=823607+physicist-proposes-a-new-type-of-computing-at-sxsw-check-out-orbital-computing&utm_content=shigginbotham (link)
[13]: http://pro.gigaom.com/2012/12/how-direct-access-solutions-can-speed-up-cloud-adoption/?utm_source=cloudutm_medium=editorial&utm_campaign=auto3&utm_term=823607+physicist-proposes-a-new-type-of-computing-at-sxsw-check-out-orbital-computing&utm_content=shigginbotham (link)
[14]: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/OmMalik?a=wRq61gKK9bY:xVctv3IMK50:yIl2AUoC8zA (link)
[15]: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/OmMalik?d=yIl2AUoC8zA (image)
[16]: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/OmMalik/~4/wRq61gKK9bY (image)

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WTF is Orbital Computing? RS Wood  <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-03-11 10:44 +0000

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