IBM is developing a new technology that researchers say is one step closer to autonomic computing, by enabling chips to sense their own flaws and reconfigure themselves without outside intervention.

The eFuse technology replaces laser fuses, used to heal chips while they are still in the fabrication process, with electrical fuses that can reroute traffic around inactive or poorly functioning areas on a chip, says Subramanian Iyer, an IBM engineer.

IBM has been working on autonomic computing techniques for some time, but this work is different in involving chip design. Microsoft has also described its autonomic computing research.

IBM expects to use its new eFuse technology in just about all of its chips as it moves to 90-nanometer process technology, including the Power5 and PowerPC 970FX chips that are already available, Iyer says.

Read more...


Source : PCWorld