Hancock, N.H. - Researchers at Cell Matrix Corp. have equipped a configurable-computing architecture under development there with a novel hardwire capability in an attempt to give it maximum speed.

Cell Matrix (Blacksburg, Va.) designed the architecture to maximize configurability. One technique for doing that is to have the programmable cells pass data along as though they were simply pieces of wire. But emulating a wire's function is a much slower process than actually sending electrons down one. The enhancement involves a hardware switch inside each cell of the array.

"The cell was configured to act as a piece of wire-to simply pass one of its inputs to an output. It now detects that condition and activates a bypass circuit within itself," said Nicholas Macias, the company's director.

A hardware mechanism, such as moving a droplet of mercury, could be used to form the switch, in which case the cell would turn into an actual conductor. Configuring a row of such cells would then create a wire. Such wires could be programmed to create configurable wiring, Macias said.

The Cell Matrix architecture was conceived as a very fine-grained configurable computing paradigm that would be ideal for molecular circuits. Each cell can perform a few logic functions via an internal lookup table, and cells can pass both data and reconfiguration information to their nearest neighbors. One objective was to allow programs to be fed into the edge of a massive array and then spread through the array, configuring it for an algorithm. The approach allows defective components to be switched out of the array, making it ideal for atomic and molecular systems that might have a large number of defects.

Each cell can receive data in either a processing or a configuration mode. The architecture is equipped with a third hardware switching mode so that high-speed conduction paths can be created by the software.

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