DARPA Has an Ambitious $1.5 Billion Plan To Reinvent Electronics (technologyreview.com) 66
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which funds a range of blue-sky research efforts relevant to the US military, last year launched a $1.5 billion, five-year program known as the Electronics Resurgence Initiative (ERI) to support work on advances in chip technology. It has now unveiled the first set of research teams selected to explore unproven but potentially powerful approaches that could revolutionize US chip development and manufacturing. From a report: The ERI's budget represents around a fourfold increase in DARPA's typical annual spending on hardware. Initial projects reflect the initiative's three broad areas of focus: chip design, architecture, and materials and integration. One project aims to radically reduce the time it takes to create a new chip design, from years or months to just a day, by automating the process with machine learning and other tools so that even relatively inexperienced users can create high-quality designs.
"No one yet knows how to get a new chip design completed in 24 hours safely without human intervention," says Andrew Kahng of the University of California, San Diego, who's leading one of the teams involved. "This is a fundamentally new approach we're developing." William Chappell, the head of the DARPA office that manages the ERI program, said, "We're trying to engineer the craft brewing revolution in electronics." The agency hopes that the automated design tools will inspire smaller companies without the resources of giant chip makers, just as specialized brewers in the US have innovated alongside the beer industry's giants.
"No one yet knows how to get a new chip design completed in 24 hours safely without human intervention," says Andrew Kahng of the University of California, San Diego, who's leading one of the teams involved. "This is a fundamentally new approach we're developing." William Chappell, the head of the DARPA office that manages the ERI program, said, "We're trying to engineer the craft brewing revolution in electronics." The agency hopes that the automated design tools will inspire smaller companies without the resources of giant chip makers, just as specialized brewers in the US have innovated alongside the beer industry's giants.
Uh..... (Score:2)
"No one yet knows how to get a new chip design completed in 24 hours safely without human intervention,"
What on earth is he talking about?
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This is how you get skynet. Do you want skynet? DARPA apparently does
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If you're going to do an Archer-style quote, at least do it properly:
"Do you want Skynet? Because that's how you get Skynet."
Re:Uh..... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Uh..... (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to mention that the tools that area already automated to *assist* with this stuff are buggy as fuck, and EDA companies software development practices make Microsoft look good.
But more power to DARPA, the more that can be automated, the more that can be accomplished. Chip design is still so expensive that only a few people with very deep pockets can participate.
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And that problem (of optimizing DAG) is at least NP.
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Size matters but timing is everything!
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And this is a bad thing? 1.5 billion hardly rates it's on line item on the country's budget. And the bulk of these funds are paid in the form of grants to research Universities and private companies that are attempting to innovate. This removes the pressure of having to generate a ROI to fund their work.
And by the way only around 50 percent of US citizens pay any federal taxes. Those complaining their federal tax dollars are being misspent are usually not paying any federal taxes to be misspent. They are co
Re: Uh..... (Score:3)
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The 'Matter Compiler' approach (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm beginning to think that we're reaching the limits of what we can do with the laser lithography method of silicon IC creation. For instance look at the problems Intel is having with 10nm fabrication right now. Perhaps the way forward is straight out of science fiction: a matter compiler/3D printer-like approach, where an integrated circuit is built up an atom or a molecule at a time? Pure imagination on my part, but is it really out of our reach?
Doesn't seem that far out of reach theoretically. However, as in all things, the practical cost effective reach seems a long way off.
A lot of things *could* be done, but we don't do them because they are too expensive or better/cheaper/faster options exist so we use the other options.
Re:The 'Matter Compiler' approach (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't seem that far out of reach theoretically. However, as in all things, the practical cost effective reach seems a long way off.
A lot of things *could* be done, but we don't do them because they are too expensive or better/cheaper/faster options exist so we use the other options.
Isn't that precisely what DARPA is for, though? Fund research that is cutting edge, highly speculative, or too long term for private companies to undertake? A lot of the technology and techniques that DARPA develops eventually makes it's way to the civilian market as well.
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Oh sure, but DARPA has a limited budget and needs to be throwing it's money towards the ideas that have the greatest possibility of paying a dividend on the investment. So if there are other more promising ideas that are higher on the cost/reward estimates, they will be funded first.
But my post wasn't about DARPA. It was about the development in technology in general.
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Oh sure, but DARPA has a limited budget and needs to be throwing it's money towards the ideas that have the greatest possibility of paying a dividend on the investment.
Good point there. Imagine what they would already have come up with if we took the money wasted on the F-35, LCS, or, going back even further, Land Warrior/FCS and had given it to DARPA. We might have flying, or at least autonomous, cars.
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LOL You do realize that DARPA has been after the autonomous vehicle concept for over a decade now right? It's been going on so long now that I've seen multiple TV programs on the "science channel" about it and at least one "National Geographic" and one "NOVA" special too.
I know they have. Just imagining what billions more in funding could have done. Throwing money at problems doesn't solve them, but it can go a long way towards it.
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The D in DARPA stands for Defense, so your flying cars will have to wait. And DARPA doesn't get the money from all those other projects you mentioned. If I'm reading you correctly, you're arguing that we didn't need those weapons mentioned above. I'll disagree with you, while agreeing that we paid much more than necessary...FWIW, I've been in the defense contracting business for more than 35 yrs. DoD in general needs to have the way in which it procures weapons completely revamped. DARPA has had plenty
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If I'm reading you correctly, you're arguing that we didn't need those weapons mentioned above. I'll disagree with you, while agreeing that we paid much more than necessary...
F-35: would have been much better spent upgrading existing airframes. the aircraft was so full of problems they had to delay retirement of the A-10 which is probably one of if not the best ground attack aircraft ever built, might as well have just kept them and upgraded them. The F-22 production lines could have been kept open. F-16s are literally breaking apart but they are already proven designs with established production and logistical support, could have just created a new block. It's trying to do
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I'm well aware of how good the A-10 is/was. You'll be hard pressed to find any company that can upgrade a plane that's been out of production that long, by a company that no longer exists.
The F16 is/was a great plane as well, but it's gotten pretty long in the tooth now. And why are they breaking apart? Planes go through "phase" on a regular basis where the plane essentially gets rebuilt. It's why aircraft like the U-2 just hit 60 years old, but none of the airframes are anywhere near that.
As for LCS, F
You mean like (Score:2)
The development of a human brain from a single cell?
Re: The 'Matter Compiler' approach (Score:3, Informative)
AMD seems to be doing just fine with 7nm, so not sure how Intel sitting on their hands relates to this.
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Not with this one (Score:3)
Given all the design work is done on the workstation by typing a lot of HDL code and doing spice simulations and maybe even some layout work, the particular focus of this one is purely a software investment.
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The (main) problem with sub 14nm nodes is that you need to get everything right on each step in the mfg process - the old "good enough" standard for some steps really just doesn't apply anymore, as a flaw anywhere kills the yield. Also seems like the 10nm node isn't going to be a winner, more likely to see smaller future nodes be more successful.
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I'm beginning to think that we're reaching the limits of what we can do with the laser lithography method of silicon IC creation. For instance look at the problems Intel is having with 10nm fabrication right now. Perhaps the way forward is straight out of science fiction: a matter compiler/3D printer-like approach, where an integrated circuit is built up an atom or a molecule at a time? Pure imagination on my part, but is it really out of our reach?
If you're having problems implementing high enough manufacturing standards to support your current goals, then the solution isn't to switch to a system which is even *harder* to implement.
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Actually, modern ICs are done at the atom level buildups -
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Perhaps the way forward is straight out of science fiction: a matter compiler/3D printer-like approach, where an integrated circuit is built up an atom or a molecule at a time? Pure imagination on my part, but is it really out of our reach?
Neither science fiction nor your imagination. It's called a nanoassembler, and it was described fairly formally for the first time in Engines of Creation [wikipedia.org] by K. Eric Drexler in 1986. People have been working on the concept ever since. It's still at the level of attempting to build the tools required to build the tools required to build the tools required to build the nanoassembler. Optimistically. It could be even worse than that. Shoving individual atoms and molecules around into the desired order is
Craft Brewing? (Score:1)
This sounds more like the AnheiserBuschification of electronics. Less human care and oversight. More volume and automation. This ends with the Bud Light vat-wash of technology.
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This sounds more like the AnheiserBuschification of electronics. Less human care and oversight. More volume and automation. This ends with the Bud Light vat-wash of technology.
Hey, maybe it will be more like "Dude spends a lot on brewing equipment and then uses it once (if at all), and the result of that one attempt tastes like shit." AKA "home craft brewing".
China steals this in 3...2...1... (Score:1)
We pay for it, they take it.
FPGA (Score:2)
Re:FPGA (Score:4, Insightful)
FPGAs have advanced a lot in 20 years, but they are the moral equivalent of running your code under Java. That's not at all what they do, but their ability to configure on the fly comes at a very high cost in terms of frequency, power and area. A custom chip is always going to be faster, smaller and cheaper (COGS wise).
It's true that FPGA mfg's could do more to enable other tools, but their motivation is very weak.
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It's true that FPGA mfg's could do more to enable other tools, but their motivation is very weak.
Their motivation is negative. Practically no FPGAs are sufficiently documented for third parties to create programming tools.
Another AI winter here we come (Score:1)
And they don't think the existing foundaries are working towards this goal already? It's very lofty and doomed to failure. Better work on little bits and pieces of the puzzle instead...
The Internet (Score:2)
It would be nice if they could re-invent the Internet . . .
So terrific for the economy (Score:5, Insightful)
Basic research! Nothing more likely to "fail" in the commercial sense, and so hated by free market companies that hate risk (all of them); nothing more likely - longer term - to come up with the big finds that create whole new economic sectors.
Their "ARPAnet" idea wasn't even supposed to make money, that's the funny bit.
With just a little luck, some of this research will end up creating whole new economic opportunities, which will result in a few people becoming billionaires, who will probably, with tiresome regularity, turn out to be libertarians who don't believe government can do anything useful and attempt to pay no taxes.
Ah, those public bureaucrat-scientists struggling for grants: America's true Job Creators.
(Juuuust kidding, of course. America's real job creators are consumers: without people putting butts in seats of the restaurant, neither the cooks&waiters, nor the restaurant owner, nor his banker, have any jobs.)
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America's true Job Creators.
(Juuuust kidding, of course. America's real job creators are consumers: without people putting butts in seats of the restaurant, neither the cooks&waiters, nor the restaurant owner, nor his banker, have any jobs.)
Not entirely, supply and demand play off of each other. Sometimes people are more enticed to consume more when there are more choices, better prices, shorter wait lines, or overall better service.
A fairly successful standalone restaurant owner can decide whether he wants to expand or not. He might be content with a well running business, though that will hit a ceiling as people weigh the quality of the food and service against increasing wait times and crowding, not to mention maximum occupancy. So maybe
No one ever said... (Score:2)
No one ever said DARPA wasn't ambitious.
Hey Siri, print me a homicidal AI bot (Score:2)
I guess that's what they want.
Blue sky or green field? (Score:2)
What they need is people who think outside the box. An idea shower might help going forward. This new research will push the envelope, drilling down to new ideas. This will be a win-win scenario, impacting the bottom line. The game plan should be results-driven so we can all hit the ground running. When all is said and done, we might find we have re-invented the wheel, forcing us to go back to the drawing board. It's a no-brainer!
Craft Brewed Chips (Score:1)
"We're trying to engineer the craft brewing revolution in electronics."
I for one am looking forward to running a computer based on The Great, Big Kentucky Sausage Fest Chip