One chip to rule them all

摘要

ELECTRONICS has long relied on a division of labour. At the heart of myriad devices, from computers and smartphones to drones and dishwashers, a microprocessor can be found busily crunching data. Switch the power off, though, and this chip will forget everything. Devices therefore contain other, different sorts of chips that work as a memory. That is inefficient, because shuffling data between the two types of chip costs time and energy. Now, though, a group of researchers working in Singapore and Germany think they have found a way to make a single chip work as both a processor and a memory.