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IBM scientists say radical new ‘in-memory’ architecture will speed up computers

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Re: IBM scientists say radical new ‘in-memory’ architecture will speed up computers

#71

Post by Alex3917 »

steego wrote: post #66
nyolfen wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've never understood why people don't get more excited about memristors. personally, mostly because i've been seeing articles about how they're just about to totally upend computing for the last ten years

I've noticed that overly excited articles are tend to be nonsense until they're finally true. I know that sounds like tautological nonsense, but the trick comes down to predicting when these things will become real rather than if they become real. From my experience, if you want a good indication, look at price/performance trends for a particular technology. If that technology has no price/performance data, look at t…

> I've noticed that overly excited articles are tend to be nonsense until they're finally true.

The funny thing is that if you reread Wired's article about Push, which they've been made fun of for ever since writing it, the only thing that hasn't come true is the technologies they predicted would power it. But other than that it's a perfect description of Reddit, Facebook, YouTube, etc.

https://www.wired.com/1997/03/ff-push/

Re: IBM scientists say radical new ‘in-memory’ architecture will speed up computers

#72

Post by otakucode »

Illniyar wrote: post #11
otakucode wrote: post #2

This is the promise of memristors. Despite innumerable articles being written about neuromorphic architectures like they'll be something miraculous, this ability to change from functioning as a bit of memory to being a bunch of functional logic on the fly at the speed of a memory read? That's going to be crazy. It will open up possibilities that we probably can't even imagine right now. I've never understood why peop…

I thought memristors is RAM that doesn't lose state when losing electricity. Is this article about memristors? That wasn't clear. Can memristors perform computations?

Memristors are any device whose resistance changes in response to the voltage that's gone across it in a predictable and reversible way. The phase-change memory they describe is one type. Memristors can form any logical gate. They are essentially resistors whose value can be changed dynamically and persistently. Rather than having them store data directly (which you can do, sure, and we'll probably see devices doing that soon) they can form logic gates in much the same way transistors do - except they can be changed in configuration while running. They can form a set of gates that function as a traditional memory latch one nanosecond, then the next be part of an adder. It's like if re-programming was so profoundly free on an FPGA as to be exactly as burdensome as performing an AND.

Re: IBM scientists say radical new ‘in-memory’ architecture will speed up computers

#73

Post by otakucode »

sliverstorm wrote: post #37
otakucode wrote: post #2

This is the promise of memristors. Despite innumerable articles being written about neuromorphic architectures like they'll be something miraculous, this ability to change from functioning as a bit of memory to being a bunch of functional logic on the fly at the speed of a memory read? That's going to be crazy. It will open up possibilities that we probably can't even imagine right now. I've never understood why peop…

this ability to change from functioning as a bit of memory to being a bunch of functional logic on the fly at the speed of a memory read? That's going to be crazy. It will open up possibilities that we probably can't even imagine right now. There might be clever ways to make a particular circuit dual purpose or something (Storage element that can do math on itself? A math pipeline that doesn't need pipeline flops?) B…

FPGA reprogramming is slow. It's like saying we can make more oil because all we have to do is wait a few hundreds million years for all our plant matter to rot. And correct me if I'm wrong, but can you even reprogram an FPGA while it is actively being used? I don't believe so. Much less reprogram it from the gates which are active.

Re: IBM scientists say radical new ‘in-memory’ architecture will speed up computers

#74

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

hinkley wrote: post #51
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They were right. Who was right about what? > They are the equivalent of second generation laser printers. What does this even mean?

Roentgen and Retina displays are in the neighborhood of 200 ppi, which is about when laser printers became 'clear' and legible, which was the thesis behind Roentgen. But now you've got smart phones pushing in the region of 400 PPI. It's smoother, and make Apple displays look like laggards. But they're beyond the point where most eyes notice the difference without magnification.

Thanks for clarifying the laser printer thing. The connection was super unclear. Now who was right, and what were they right about?

Re: IBM scientists say radical new ‘in-memory’ architecture will speed up computers

#75

Post by valuearb »

hinkley wrote: post #51
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They were right. Who was right about what? > They are the equivalent of second generation laser printers. What does this even mean?

Roentgen and Retina displays are in the neighborhood of 200 ppi, which is about when laser printers became 'clear' and legible, which was the thesis behind Roentgen. But now you've got smart phones pushing in the region of 400 PPI. It's smoother, and make Apple displays look like laggards. But they're beyond the point where most eyes notice the difference without magnification.

There is a lot more to screen quality than PPI. Color fidelity, refresh rates, etc. Retina was great when other displays weren't, now that most devices have retina level displays going beyond that level isn't adding as much as making sure your color reproduction is accurate and your device can update the screen in a rate fast enough that animations don't judder.

Re: IBM scientists say radical new ‘in-memory’ architecture will speed up computers

#77

Post by blattimwind »

otakucode wrote: post #73
sliverstorm wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this ability to change from functioning as a bit of memory to being a bunch of functional logic on the fly at the speed of a memory read? That's going to be crazy. It will open up possibilities that we probably can't even imagine right now. There might be clever ways to make a particular circuit dual purpose or something (Storage element that can do math on itself? A math pipeline that doesn't need pipeline flops?) B…

FPGA reprogramming is slow. It's like saying we can make more oil because all we have to do is wait a few hundreds million years for all our plant matter to rot. And correct me if I'm wrong, but can you even reprogram an FPGA while it is actively being used? I don't believe so. Much less reprogram it from the gates which are active.

> And correct me if I'm wrong, but can you even reprogram an FPGA while it is actively being used?

You're wrong, this is called partial reconfiguration.

Re: IBM scientists say radical new ‘in-memory’ architecture will speed up computers

#78

Post by blattimwind »

MikeDoesCode wrote: post #44

Didn't HP design and I think prototype something like this with memristors, calling it 'The Machine'? edit So HP built one with 160Tb of memory, I remember it being proposed with memristors but haven't been able to check if the prototype used them... Does anyone know what is different about IBM's that let's them claim this as a first though?

The prototype didn't even have non-volatile memory, because NV-DIMMs weren't available.

Re: IBM scientists say radical new ‘in-memory’ architecture will speed up computers

#79

Post by com2kid »

otakucode wrote: post #72
Illniyar wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought memristors is RAM that doesn't lose state when losing electricity. Is this article about memristors? That wasn't clear. Can memristors perform computations?

Memristors are any device whose resistance changes in response to the voltage that's gone across it in a predictable and reversible way. The phase-change memory they describe is one type. Memristors can form any logical gate. They are essentially resistors whose value can be changed dynamically and persistently. Rather than having them store data directly (which you can do, sure, and we'll probably see devices doing…

That sounds like the optimization problems with a VLIW architecture taken to a whole new level.

Re: IBM scientists say radical new ‘in-memory’ architecture will speed up computers

#80

Post by 52-6F-62 »

mitchty wrote: post #64
cududa wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure I first read about them in a PC World magazine I got at the airport on a family vacation in like 2003

Doubtful, the first purpose built memristor existed in 2008. Though to be honest we've seen them since the 1800's as oddities in certain electrical circuits. They've been theorized since 1971 mathmatically but until fairly recently haven't been a thing. It is the fourth fundamental circuit, give it a while before discounting it. And be happy you're alive when the fourth fundamental circuit was discovered and made rea…

Feynman also ranted about how much processing within the memory would speed computing in the 80's. He challenged those "computer scientists" to figure it out :P

.... this lecture: http://cse.unl.edu/~seth/434/Web%20Links%20and%20Docs/Feynma...

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