Honey could be the key to making chips cooler, more efficient and even biodegradable

Honey could be the next material used to create brain-like computer chips. Its proven practicality marks another step towards creating efficient and renewable processors for neuromorphic computing systems, using biodegradable products.

Researchers at Washington State University have developed a memristor prototype made from a unique material: honey. To create the circuit, the researchers processed honey into a solid form and sandwiched it between two metal electrodes. The resulting structure mimics what we might call a synapse, the part of the brain that connects neurons and allows them to communicate with each other.

The human brain is made up of more than 100 billion neurons with more than 1000 trillion synapses. Each neuron is capable of processing and storing data, making them much more efficient than the architecture found in traditional computers.

The memristor they worked with was built on a microscale and is about the size of a human hair.

Lead researcher Feng Zhao tested the switching speeds of honey memristors and found that they were comparable to human synapses (100 ns on and 500 ns off). They were also able to emulate functions called spiking time-dependent plasticity and spiking rate-dependent plasticity, which help learn and retain new information. This in simple words would be much faster than any processor created by humans today.

Honey was chosen due in part to its biodegradable and renewable nature. “Honey does not spoil”Zhao said. “It has a very low humidity concentration, so bacteria cannot survive in it. This means that these computer chips will be very stable and reliable for a long time.”

Not only does this solution for neuromorphic computing have the potential to run cooler and more efficiently than traditional chips, but honey-based computer chips can be removed by simply dissolving them in water. This biodegradable approach would help reduce the 22 million tons or more of electronic waste that accumulates year after year.

Zhao is also investigating the feasibility of proteins and other sugars, like those found in aloe vera leaves, for similar applications.

Future chips will be developed at the nanoscale, or about 1/1000 the size of a human hair. By pooling millions or even billions, the researchers ultimately hope to build a fully functional neuromorphic computing system.

Source: PCGAMER