Gadgets Getting Smaller

Electrical Engineers Envision Broad, Transformational Use of Flash Memory

With their high capability and no moving parts, flash drives safely store data in camera memory sticks and in some MP3 players, and they also hide in gadgets such as cell phones. Experts say once prices go down enough, flash drives will even start replacing hard drives in laptops.

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--Experts say we're no longer in the technology revolution, but in the technology evolution. The next step is to make everything we use shrink. That's why gadgets like cell phones, laptops, and MP3 players get smaller and smaller, yet can do more.

Zack Weisfeld, general manager of M-Systems in Sunnyvale, Calif., says, "I just need a screen, I need a keyboard, and basically, I carry my computer with me."

A USB flash drive uses a flash memory chip to store all of your computer applications and files just like a hard drive. Weisfeld says, "A USB flash drive means you can store a thousand disks in a little thing."

Not only can a flash memory chip hold a huge amount of information, but it also protects your information better. Unlike a hard drive, it has no moving parts inside to damage the memory. And the chip is smaller than a push pin.

"What many people don't realize is they use a lot of flash every day," Weisfeld tells DBIS. The tiny little chip is a household item and often goes unnoticed because it's buried inside devices. Flash memory technology makes it possible to have small cell phones capable of Internet access and video games.

Experts say that next, flash memory will appear in laptops. Esther Spanjer, an electrical engineer for M-Systems, says, "In another year or so, you will see the first commercial flash disk drives on the market that you will put in your laptop vs. a standard hard disk drive." They say as the size goes down, the power of these devices will continue to grow.

The only limitation of flash right now is the price, which is comparable to a hard drive with up to 60 gigabytes of memory. Flash technology is also used in memory sticks for cameras and in cars that have info-tainment and GPS systems.

BACKGROUND: How can we store hundreds of songs on pocket-sized portable devices, like Apple's iPods? Flash memory chips are the technology behind the multimedia capability of most of today's electronic devices. Digital cameras can have flash drives; and memory cards can store many different kinds of media: everything from sound and music files downloaded from the Internet, to personal photographs and digitally recorded video clips, even satellite radio.

ABOUT FLASH MEMORY: There are many forms of electronic memory, depending on the application. Flash memory is used for fast and easy information storage in devices like digital cameras and home video game consoles. It is not the same thing as RAM, which stores temporary files and is erased when you turn the computer off. (Flash RAM is used in car radios, and requires an external power source -- the car battery -- to maintain its contents.) Flash memory is used more like a hard drive for permanent, yet portable, data storage.

ADVANTAGES OF FLASH MEMORY: Flash memory offers many advantages. It is noiseless and allows faster access. It is also lighter and smaller in size, and it has no moving parts. The reason we don't use it for everything is because it is more expensive than the cost per megabyte for a conventional hard disk, which is not only cheaper, but also has much more storage capacity. As scientists continue to make improvements in the speed and storage capability of flash memory chips, we will see more and more extra features on gadgets in terms of enhanced visual, audio and memory capabilities.

SOME COMMON USES OF FLASH MEMORY:

• Your computer's BIOS chip
• CompactFlash (digital cameras)
• SmartMedia (digital cameras)
• Memory Stick (digital cameras)
• PCMCIA memory cards (laptops)
• Memory cards for video game consoles

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.

'Racetrack' Magnetic Memory Could Make Computer Memory 100,000 Times Faster

Imagine a computer equipped with shock-proof memory that's 100,000 times faster and consumes less power than current hard disks. EPFL Professor Mathias Kläui is working on a new kind of "Racetrack" memory, a high-volume, ultra-rapid non-volatile read-write magnetic memory that may soon make such a device possible.

Like the tried and true VHS videocassette, the proposed solution involves data recorded on magnetic tape. But the similarity ends there; in this system the tape would be a nickel-iron nanowire, a million times smaller than the classic tape. And unlike a magnetic videotape, in this system nothing moves mechanically. The bits of information stored in the wire are simply pushed around inside the tape using a spin polarized current, attaining the breakneck speed of several hundred meters per second in the process. It's like reading an entire VHS cassette in less than a second.Annoyed by how long it took his computer to boot up, Kläui began to think about an alternative. Hard disks are cheap and can store enormous quantities of data, but they are slow; every time a computer boots up, 2-3 minutes are lost while information is transferred from the hard disk into RAM (random access memory). The global cost in terms of lost productivity and energy consumption runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars a day.

A new kind of "Racetrack" memory -- a high-volume, ultra-rapid non-volatile read-write magnetic memory -- may soon pave the way for computers equipped with shock-proof memory that's 100,000 times faster and consumes less power than current hard disks. (Credit: Image courtesy of Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL))

In order for the idea to be feasible, each bit of information must be clearly separated from the next so that the data can be read reliably. This is achieved by using domain walls with magnetic vortices to delineate two adjacent bits. To estimate the maximum velocity at which the bits can be moved, Kläui and his colleagues* carried out measurements on vortices and found that the physical mechanism could allow for possible higher access speeds than expected.

Their results were published online October 25, 2010, in the journal Physical Review Letters. Scientists at the Zurich Research Center of IBM (which is developing a racetrack memory) have confirmed the importance of the results in a Viewpoint article. Millions or even billions of nanowires would be embedded in a chip, providing enormous capacity on a shock-proof platform. A market-ready device could be available in as little as 5-7 years.

Racetrack memory promises to be a real breakthrough in data storage and retrieval. Racetrack-equipped computers would boot up instantly, and their information could be accessed 100,000 times more rapidly than with a traditional hard disk. They would also save energy. RAM needs to be powered every millionth of a second, so an idle computer consumes up to 300 mW just maintaining data in RAM. Because Racetrack memory doesn't have this constraint, energy consumption could be slashed by nearly a factor of 300, to a few mW while the memory is idle. It's an important consideration: computing and electronics currently consumes 6% of worldwide electricity, and is forecast to increase to 15% by 2025.

Project Pioneers Use of Silicon-Germanium for Space Electronics Applications

A five-year project led by the Georgia Institute of Technology has developed a novel approach to space electronics that could change how space vehicles and instruments are designed. The new capabilities are based on silicon-germanium (SiGe) technology, which can produce electronics that are highly resistant to both wide temperature variations and space radiation.

Titled "SiGe Integrated Electronics for Extreme Environments," the $12 million, 63-month project was funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In addition to Georgia Tech, the 11-member team included academic researchers from the University of Arkansas, Auburn University, University of Maryland, University of Tennessee and Vanderbilt University. Also involved in the project were BAE Systems, Boeing Co., IBM Corp., Lynguent Inc. and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Georgia Tech student researcher Troy England works in the laboratory with a device containing silicon-germanium microchips, seen in his left hand. (Credit: Credit: Gary Meek)

"The team's overall task was to develop an end-to-end solution for NASA -- a tested infrastructure that includes everything needed to design and build extreme-environment electronics for space missions," said John Cressler, who is a Ken Byers Professor in Georgia Tech's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Cressler served as principal investigator and overall team leader for the project.

A paper on the project findings will appear in December inIEEE Transactions on Device and Materials Reliability, 2010. During the past five years, work done under the project has resulted in some 125 peer-reviewed publications.

Unique Capabilities

SiGe alloys combine silicon, the most common microchip material, with germanium at nanoscale dimensions. The result is a robust material that offers important gains in toughness, speed and flexibility.

That robustness is crucial to silicon-germanium's ability to function in space without bulky radiation shields or large, power-hungry temperature control devices. Compared to conventional approaches, SiGe electronics can provide major reductions in weight, size, complexity, power and cost, as well as increased reliability and adaptability.

"Our team used a mature silicon-germanium technology -- IBM's 0.5 micron SiGe technology -- that was not intended to withstand deep-space conditions," Cressler said. "Without changing the composition of the underlying silicon-germanium transistors, we leveraged SiGe's natural merits to develop new circuit designs -- as well as new approaches to packaging the final circuits -- to produce an electronic system that could reliably withstand the extreme conditions of space."

At the end of the project, the researchers supplied NASA with a suite of modeling tools, circuit designs, packaging technologies and system/subsystem designs, along with guidelines for qualifying those parts for use in space. In addition, the team furnished NASA with a functional prototype -- called a silicon-germanium remote electronics unit (REU) 16-channel general purpose sensor interface. The device was fabricated using silicon-germanium microchips and has been tested successfully in simulated space environments.

A New Paradigm

Andrew S. Keys, center chief technologist at the Marshall Space Flight Center and NASA program manager, said the now-completed project has moved the task of understanding and modeling silicon-germanium technology to a point where NASA engineers can start using it on actual vehicle designs.

"The silicon-germanium extreme environments team was very successful in doing what it set out to do," Keys said. "They advanced the state-of-the-art in analog silicon-germanium technology for space use -- a crucial step in developing a new paradigm leading to lighter weight and more capable space vehicle designs."

Keys explained that, at best, most electronics conform to military specifications, meaning they function across a temperature range of minus- 55 degrees Celsius to plus-125 degrees Celsius. But electronics in deep space are typically exposed to far greater temperature ranges, as well as to damaging radiation. The Moon's surface cycles between plus-120 Celsius during the lunar day to minus-180 Celsius at night.

The silicon-germanium electronics developed by the extreme environments team has been shown to function reliably throughout that entire plus-120 to minus-180 Celsius range. It is also highly resistant or immune to various types of radiation.

The conventional approach to protecting space electronics, developed in the 1960s, involves bulky metal boxes that shield devices from radiation and temperature extremes, Keys explained. Designers must place most electronics in a protected, temperature controlled central location and then connect them via long and heavy cables to sensors or other external devices.

By eliminating the need for most shielding and special cables, silicon-germanium technology helps reduce the single biggest problem in space launches -- weight. Moreover, robust SiGe circuits can be placed wherever designers want, which helps eliminate data errors caused by impedance variations in lengthy wiring schemes.

"For instance, the Mars Exploration Rovers, which are no bigger than a golf cart, use several kilometers of cable that lead into a warm box," Keys said. "If we can move most of those electronics out to where the sensors are on the robot's extremities, that will reduce cabling, weight, complexity and energy use significantly."

A Collaborative Effort

NASA currently rates the new SiGe electronics at a technology readiness level of six, which means the circuits have been integrated into a subsystem and tested in a relevant environment. The next step, level seven, involves integrating the SiGe circuits into a vehicle for space flight testing. At level eight, a new technology is mature enough to be integrated into a full mission vehicle, and at level nine the technology is used by missions on a regular basis.

Successful collaboration was an important part of the silicon-germanium team's effectiveness, Keys said. He remarked that he had "never seen such a diverse team work together so well."

Professor Alan Mantooth, who led a large University of Arkansas contingent involved in modeling and circuit-design tasks, agreed. He called the project "the most successful collaboration that I've been a part of."

Mantooth termed the extreme-electronics project highly useful in the education mission of the participating universities. He noted that a total of 82 students from six universities worked on the project over five years.

Richard W. Berger, a BAE Systems senior systems architect who collaborated on the project, also praised the student contributions.

"To be working both in analog and digital, miniaturizing, and developing extreme-temperature and radiation tolerance all at the same time -- that's not what you'd call the average student design project," Berger said.

Miniaturizing an Architecture

BAE Systems' contribution to the project included providing the basic architecture for the remote electronics unit (REU) sensor interface prototype developed by the team. That architecture came from a previous electronics generation: the now cancelled Lockheed Martin X-33 Spaceplane initially designed in the 1990s.

In the original X-33 design, Berger explained, each sensor interface used an assortment of sizeable analog parts for the front end signal receiving section. That section was supported by a digital microprocessor, memory chips and an optical bus interface -- all housed in a protective five-pound box.

The extreme environments team transformed the bulky X-33 design into a miniaturized sensor interface, utilizing silicon germanium. The resulting SiGe device weighs about 200 grams and requires no temperature or radiation shielding. Large numbers of these robust, lightweight REU units could be mounted on spacecraft or data-gathering devices close to sensors, reducing size, weight, power and reliability issues.

Berger said that BAE Systems is interested in manufacturing a sensor interface device based on the extreme environment team's discoveries.

Other space-oriented companies are also pursuing the new silicon-germanium technology, Cressler said. NASA, he explained, wants the intellectual-property barriers to the technology to be low so that it can be used widely.

"The idea is to make this infrastructure available to all interested parties," he said. "That way it could be used for any electronics assembly -- an instrument, a spacecraft, an orbital platform, lunar-surface applications, Titan missions -- wherever it can be helpful. In fact, the process of defining such an NASA mission-insertion road map is currently in progress."

New Psychology Theory Enables Computers to Mimic Human Creativity

A dealer in antique coins gets an offer to buy a beautiful bronze coin. The coin has an emperor's head on one side and the date "544 B.C." stamped on the other. The dealer examines the coin, but instead of buying it, he calls the police. Why?

Solving this "insight problem" requires creativity, a skill at which humans excel (the coin is a fake -- "B.C." and Arabic numerals did not exist at the time) and computers do not. Now, a new explanation of how humans solve problems creatively -- including the mathematical formulations for facilitating the incorporation of the theory in artificial intelligence programs -- provides a roadmap to building systems that perform like humans at the task.

A mathematical model based on psychology theory allows computers to mimic human creative problem-solving, and provides a new roadmap to architects of artificial intelligence. (Credit: iStockphoto/Baris Onal)

Ron Sun, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute professor of cognitive science, said the new "Explicit-Implicit Interaction Theory," recently introduced in an article inPsychological Review, could be used for future artificial intelligence.

"As a psychological theory, this theory pushes forward the field of research on creative problem solving and offers an explanation of the human mind and how we solve problems creatively," Sun said. "But this model can also be used as the basis for creating future artificial intelligence programs that are good at solving problems creatively."

The paper, titled "Incubation, Insight, and Creative Problem Solving: A Unified Theory and a Connectionist Model," by Sun and Sèbastien Hèlie of University of California, Santa Barbara, appeared in the July edition of Psychological Review. Discussion of the theory is accompanied by mathematical specifications for the "CLARION" cognitive architecture -- a computer program developed by Sun's research group to act like a cognitive system -- as well as successful computer simulations of the theory.

In the paper, Sun and Hèlie compare the performance of the CLARION model using "Explicit-Implicit Interaction" theory with results from previous human trials -- including tests involving the coin question -- and found results to be nearly identical in several aspects of problem solving.

In the tests involving the coin question, human subjects were given a chance to respond after being interrupted either to discuss their thought process or to work on an unrelated task. In that experiment, 35.6 percent of participants answered correctly after discussing their thinking, while 45.8 percent of participants answered correctly after working on another task.

In 5,000 runs of the CLARION program set for similar interruptions, CLARION answered correctly 35.3 percent of the time in the first instance, and 45.3 percent of the time in the second instance.

"The simulation data matches the human data very well," said Sun.

Explicit-Implicit Interaction theory is the most recent advance on a well-regarded outline of creative problem solving known as "Stage Decomposition," developed by Graham Wallas in his seminal 1926 book "The Art of Thought." According to stage decomposition, humans go through four stages -- preparation, incubation, insight (illumination), and verification -- in solving problems creatively.

Building on Wallas' work, several disparate theories have since been advanced to explain the specific processes used by the human mind during the stages of incubation and insight. Competing theories propose that incubation -- a period away from deliberative work -- is a time of recovery from fatigue of deliberative work, an opportunity for the mind to work unconsciously on the problem, a time during which the mind discards false assumptions, or a time in which solutions to similar problems are retrieved from memory, among other ideas.

Each theory can be represented mathematically in artificial intelligence models. However, most models choose between theories rather than seeking to incorporate multiple theories and therefore they are fragmentary at best.

Sun and Hèlie's Explicit-Implicit Interaction (EII) theory integrates several of the competing theories into a larger equation.

"EII unifies a lot of fragmentary pre-existing theories," Sun said. "These pre-existing theories only account for some aspects of creative problem solving, but not in a unified way. EII unifies those fragments and provides a more coherent, more complete theory."

The basic principles of EII propose the coexistence of two different types of knowledge and processing: explicit and implicit. Explicit knowledge is easier to access and verbalize, can be rendered symbolically, and requires more attention to process. Implicit knowledge is relatively inaccessible, harder to verbalize, and is more vague and requires less attention to process.

In solving a problem, explicit knowledge could be the knowledge used in reasoning, deliberately thinking through different options, while implicit knowledge is the intuition that gives rise to a solution suddenly. Both types of knowledge are involved simultaneously to solve a problem and reinforce each other in the process. By including this principle in each step, Sun was able to achieve a successful system.

"This tells us how creative problem solving may emerge from the interaction of explicit and implicit cognitive processes; why both types of processes are necessary for creative problem solving, as well as in many other psychological domains and functionalities," said Sun.