Penn Engineers Develop Chip That Uses Light to Power AI

University of Pennsylvania engineers have developed a new chip that uses light waves, rather than electricity, to perform the complex math essential to training AI.

Penn Engineers Develop Chip That Uses Light to Power AI. Image credit: tasnimnews.com

The chip has the potential to radically accelerate the processing speed of computers while also reducing their energy consumption.

The silicon-photonic (SiPh) chip's design is the first to bring together Benjamin Franklin Medal Laureate and H. Nedwill Ramsey Professor Nader Engheta's pioneering research in manipulating materials at the nanoscale to perform mathematical computations using light—the fastest possible means of communication—with the SiPh platform, which uses silicon, the cheap, abundant element used to mass-produce computer chips.

The interaction of light waves with matter represents one possible avenue for developing computers that supersede the limitations of today's chips, which are essentially based on the same principles as chips from the earliest days of the computing revolution in the 1960s.

In a paper, Engheta's group, together with that of Firooz Aflatouni, Associate Professor in Electrical and Systems Engineering, describes the development of the new chip.

"We decided to join forces," says Engheta, leveraging the fact that Aflatouni's research group has pioneered nanoscale silicon devices.

Their goal was to develop a platform for performing what is known as vector-matrix multiplication, a core mathematical operation in the development and function of neural networks, the computer architecture that powers today's AI tools.

Instead of using a silicon wafer of uniform height, explains Engheta, "you make the silicon thinner, say 150 nanometers," but only in specific regions. Those variations in height—without the addition of any other materials—provide a means of controlling the propagation of light through the chip, since the variations in height can be distributed to cause light to scatter in specific patterns, allowing the chip to perform mathematical calculations at the speed of light.

Due to the constraints imposed by the commercial foundry that produced the chips, Aflatouni says, this design is already ready for commercial applications, and could potentially be adapted for use in graphics processing units (GPUs), the demand for which has skyrocketed with the widespread interest in developing new AI systems.

"They can adopt the Silicon Photonics platform as an add-on," says Aflatouni, "and then you could speed up training and classification."

In addition to faster speed and less energy consumption, Engheta and Aflatouni's chip has privacy advantages: Because many computations can happen simultaneously, there will be no need to store sensitive information in a computer's working memory, rendering a future computer powered by such technology virtually unhackable.

"No one can hack into a non-existing memory to access your information," says Aflatouni. (Tasnim News Agency)

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE

New process allows full recovery of starting materials from tough polymer composites

In a win for chemistry, inventors at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have designed a closed-loop path for synthesizing an exceptionally tough carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer, or CFRP, and later recovering all of its starting materials.

Sensors made from ‘frozen smoke’ can detect toxic formaldehyde in homes and offices

Researchers have developed a sensor made from ‘frozen smoke’ that uses artificial intelligence techniques to detect formaldehyde in real time at concentrations as low as eight parts per billion, far beyond the sensitivity of most indoor air quality sensors.

Process contains leaks, improves thermal performance in buildings

Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers have developed a novel way to encapsulate salt hydrate phase-change materials within polymer fibers through a coaxial pulling process.

Researchers invent new way to stretch diamond for better quantum bits

Results could help pave the way for quantum infrastructure.

Armor for steel

New method could enable advances in energy, electronics and aerospace.

360-degree head-up display view could warn drivers of road obstacles in real time

Researchers have developed an augmented reality head-up display that could improve road safety by displaying potential hazards as high-resolution three-dimensional holograms directly in a driver’s field of vision in real time.