Hardware

Brain-like chips are boosting computers and battling cybercrime

The human brain is more powerful and energy-efficient than any computer. Scientists are imitating the way it works to produce better computer chips and help deal with the growing amounts of data generated every day.

12/06/2025 18:26

Photonic processor could streamline 6G wireless signal processing

As more connected devices demand an increasing amount of bandwidth for tasks like teleworking and cloud computing, it will become extremely challenging to manage the finite amount of wireless spectrum available for all users to share.

11/06/2025 21:00

Chinese researchers debut world's first AI-based processor chip design system

A team of engineers, AI specialists and chip design researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences has designed, built and tested what they are describing as the first AI-based chip design system. The group has published a paper describing their system, called QiMeng, on the arXiv preprint server.

11/06/2025 20:30

New security flaw allows eavesdropping via laptop and smart speaker microphones

The ghostly woman's voice pipes through the speakers, covered in radio static but her message intact from beyond—"The birch canoe slid on the smooth planks."

11/06/2025 20:11

High-speed DAC paves the way for faster and more energy-efficient optical and electrical links in data centers

At the 2025 Symposium on VLSI Technology and Circuits, imec, a research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technologies, and IDLab, an imec research group at Ghent University and the University of Antwerp, Belgium, announced a significant breakthrough in high-speed digital-to-analog conversion.

11/06/2025 18:56

'Optical neural engine' can solve partial differential equations

Partial differential equations (PDEs) are a class of mathematical problems that represent the interplay of multiple variables, and therefore have predictive power when it comes to complex physical systems. Solving these equations is a perpetual challenge, however, and current computational techniques for doing so are time-consuming and expensive.

11/06/2025 00:23

Old smartphones can have a new life as tiny data centers

Researchers at the University of Tartu Institute of Computer Science introduce a novel approach to reducing electronic waste and advancing sustainable data processing: turning old smartphones into tiny data centers.

05/06/2025 19:41

US supercomputer named after Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna to power AI and scientific research

A new supercomputer named after a winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry will help power artificial intelligence technology and scientific discoveries from a perch in the hills above the University of California, Berkeley, federal officials said Thursday.

30/05/2025 11:27

World's lowest write power operation for high-speed SOT-MRAM cell achieved

Researchers at the Center for Innovative Integrated Electronic Systems (CIES), Tohoku University, have achieved the world's lowest write power for a specific type of memory storage device. Not only does this device boast record-breaking energy-efficiency, but it is also incredibly fast. This finding may lead to revolutionary advancements in memory storage device technology that also contribute to a greener, more efficient future.

21/05/2025 11:17

AI chip developed for decentralized use without the cloud

A new AI chip developed at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) works without the cloud server or internet connections needed by existing chips. The AI Pro, designed by Prof Hussam Amrouch, is modeled on the human brain. Its innovative neuromorphic architecture enables it to perform calculations on the spot, ensuring full cyber security. It is also up to 10 times more energy efficient.

19/05/2025 23:04

Computer scientists discover new security vulnerability in Intel processors

Anyone who speculates on likely events ahead of time and prepares accordingly can react quicker to new developments. What practically every person does every day, consciously or unconsciously, is also used by modern computer processors to speed up the execution of programs. They have so-called speculative technologies which allow them to execute instructions on reserve that experience suggests are likely to come next. Anticipating individual computing steps accelerates the overall processing of information.

13/05/2025 22:30

Giving small satellites a bigger impact with an advanced wireless chip

The world is steadily moving toward seamless, global connectivity through satellite constellations. Small satellites—weighing up to 10 to 100 kgs—are further enhancing the connectivity with their flexibility and scalability. But the application of small satellites often faces a significant challenge in their ability to accept communication beams.

13/05/2025 22:00

More efficient method developed to monitor drivers' attention levels

Fifty-two people have died on Catalan roads so far this year, according to data from the Catalan Traffic Service. Although there have been fewer accidents in the first four months of the year than in the same period last year, accidents continue to have a terrible impact: more than 3,500 people were involved in 2,414 traffic accidents in 2024, 48 of them with fatalities.

12/05/2025 23:20

New chip uses AI to shrink large language models' energy footprint by 50%

Oregon State University College of Engineering researchers have developed a more efficient chip as an antidote to the vast amounts of electricity consumed by large-language-model artificial intelligence applications like Gemini and GPT-4.

08/05/2025 18:46

New chip tests cooling solutions for stacked microelectronics

As demand grows for more powerful and efficient microelectronics systems, industry is turning to 3D integration—stacking chips on top of each other. This vertically layered architecture could allow high-performance processors, like those used for artificial intelligence, to be packaged closely with other highly specialized chips for communication or imaging. But technologists everywhere face a major challenge: how to prevent these stacks from overheating.

29/04/2025 19:29

Dual scalable annealing processors overcome capacity and precision limits

Combinatorial optimization problems (COPs) arise in various fields such as shift scheduling, traffic routing, and drug development. However, they are challenging to solve using traditional computers in a practical timeframe.

28/04/2025 23:16

Skia technique decodes 'shadow branches' to boost data center efficiency

What happens when trailblazing engineers and industry professionals team up? The answer may transform the future of computing efficiency for modern data centers.

28/04/2025 18:11

A shortcut to AI computation: In-memory computing overcomes data transfer bottlenecks

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to advance, researchers at POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology) have identified a breakthrough that could make AI technologies faster and more efficient.

25/04/2025 18:56

Ferroelectric RAM performs calculations within memory

In a new Nature Communications study, researchers have developed an in-memory ferroelectric differentiator capable of performing calculations directly in the memory without requiring a separate processor.

24/04/2025 14:30

Novel out-of-core mechanism introduced for large-scale graph neural network training

A research team has introduced a new out-of-core mechanism, Capsule, for large-scale GNN training, which can achieve up to a 12.02× improvement in runtime efficiency, while using only 22.24% of the main memory, compared to SOTA out-of-core GNN systems. This work was published in the Proceedings of the ACM on Management of Data .The team included the Data Darkness Lab (DDL) at the Medical Imaging Intelligence and Robotics Research Center of the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) Suzhou Institute.

24/04/2025 00:05

Researchers develop smaller, more efficient space-tolerant computer chips

Space is a highly volatile environment. Factors like radiation, extreme temperatures, and debris make outer space a challenging environment for operating technology. In particular, radiation can have devastating effects on computer chips.

17/04/2025 23:41

Programmable photonic chip uses light to accelerate AI training and cut energy use

Penn Engineers have developed the first programmable chip that can train nonlinear neural networks using light—a breakthrough that could dramatically speed up AI training, reduce energy use and even pave the way for fully light-powered computers.

15/04/2025 23:38

Leveraging silicon photonics for scalable and sustainable AI hardware

The emergence of AI has profoundly transformed numerous industries. Driven by deep learning technology and Big Data, AI requires significant processing power for training its models. While the existing AI infrastructure relies on graphical processing units (GPUs), the substantial processing demands and energy expenses associated with its operation remain key challenges. Adopting a more efficient and sustainable AI infrastructure paves the way for advancing AI development in the future.

10/04/2025 19:33

Photonic chips boost computing speed and efficiency to address growing demand

Computer chips that combine the use of light and electricity are shown to increase computational performance, while reducing energy consumption, compared with conventional electronic chips. The photonic computing chips, described in two papers in Nature this week, might address the growing computing demands driven by advancing artificial intelligence technology.

09/04/2025 22:58

Gigaflow cache streamlines cloud traffic, with 51% higher hit rate and 90% lower misses for programmable SmartNICs

A new way to temporarily store memory, Gigaflow, helps direct heavy traffic in cloud data centers caused by AI and machine learning workloads, according to a study led by University of Michigan researchers.

08/04/2025 23:53

Brain-like computer steers rolling robot with 0.25% of the power needed by conventional controllers

A smaller, lighter and more energy-efficient computer, demonstrated at the University of Michigan, could help save weight and power for autonomous drones and rovers, with implications for autonomous vehicles more broadly.

27/03/2025 15:39

Giving verification more logic and more scale: New method enhances processor security against side-channel attacks

More than seven years ago, cybersecurity researchers were thoroughly rattled by the discovery of Meltdown and Spectre, two major security vulnerabilities uncovered in the microprocessors found in virtually every computer on the planet.

26/03/2025 17:37

Korean researchers develop a processor for real-time hologram generation

Korean researchers have developed a digital holography processor that converts two-dimensional (2D) videos into real-time three-dimensional (3D) holograms. This technology is expected to play a key role in the future of holography, as it enables the instantaneous transformation of ordinary 2D videos into 3D holograms.

24/03/2025 23:10

SplatOverflow enables remote hardware troubleshooting

A team of researchers from Cornell Tech has developed a new tool designed to revolutionize hardware troubleshooting, with the help of 3D phone scans.

24/03/2025 21:10

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unveils new Rubin AI chips at GTC 2025

Nvidia founder Jensen Huang kicked off the company's artificial intelligence developer conference on Tuesday by telling a crowd of thousands that AI is going through "an inflection point."

19/03/2025 12:17