• porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    i remember there was a diode and transistor that were literally completely seperated from the traces of the rest of the chip, and yet they were functional pieces and the chip wouldnt work if you removed them.

    If that was true they would be getting the Nobel in physics for discovering some incredible new quantum phenomenal, it would be front-page news everywhere. I highly doubt it’s true.

    Frustratingly, that article you linked doesn’t actually link to the paper. But it is in Nature Communications. That’s a respectable journal but not that prestigious, and it publishes a lot of over hyped stuff. Not that any journal doesn’t. But if they had really found new physics with AI chip design that would go to Science, Nature, or maybe PRL.

    • Scubus@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 days ago

      Nah, it wasnt anything truly revolutionary. It was just some weird impedence effect we didnt fully understand how it was utilizing. AI doesnt really produce NEW stuff, but its really good at taking advantage of physics weve already worked out. Its not going to design a NEW chip, but it can pretty easily optimize existing chips or design a “new” layout that might be more efficient.

    • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 days ago

      Confidently incorrect about how fragile some circuits can be. Simple functionality is a convenient illusion we’ve beaten into various squiggles of metal. Electricity is secretly also a radio and a magnet, and even in wires it can’t know there’s nothing at the end until it gets there. Sometimes things just happen.

      • porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        2 days ago

        They’re fabricating micrometer components with a 90 nm process. That’s pretty well in the classical regime. If they’re seeing substantial tunneling at that scale it would be rather noteworthy to say the least.

          • porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            2 days ago

            A single diode a micrometer away from anything else is not suddenly a transformer without which a 400 um2 antenna stops working.