Graphite, more commonly known as pencil lead, could become the next big thing in the quest for smaller and less power-hungry electronics.
Resembling chicken wire on a nano scale, graphene – single sheets of graphite – is only one atom thick, making it the world’s thinnest material. Two million graphene sheets stacked up would not be as thick as a credit card.
Arm Holdings has unveiled what it describes as the “world’s most energy-efficient microprocessor” design. The firm says that microcontrollers based on the “Flycatcher” architecture will pave the way for the “internet of things” - the spread of the net to a wider range of devices.
WORLD-CLASS sprinters push themselves to the limit to achieve record-breaking speeds, but even Usain Bolt can’t keep going for an hour. Now the same principle is being used to create faster computer chips. Designed for quick “sprints” of computation rather than sustained performance, the chips could make your smartphone 10 times faster without frying the battery.
The first systematic power profiles of microprocessors could help lower the energy consumption of small and large devices, say researchers.
NVIDIA today announced that it will provide the source code for the new NVIDIA® CUDA® LLVM-based compiler to academic researchers and software-tool vendors, enabling them to more easily add GPU support for more programming languages and support CUDA applications on alternative processor architectures.
LLVM is a widely-used open source compiler infrastructure with a modular design that makes it easy to add support for new programming languages and processor architectures. It is used for a range of programming requirements by many leading companies, including Adobe, Apple, Cray, Electronic Arts, and others.
A new type of switch that performs logic functions within a single molecule could mean smaller, faster, and more efficient electronics.
