In a groundbreaking breakthrough, scientists have discovered an entirely new kind of microchip that uses microwaves rather than traditional digital integrated circuits to perform operations effectively.
The processor, which can perform more efficiently than conventional CPUs, is the world’s fully functional microwave neural network (MNN) that can easily fit on a chip.
The study was published in the Journal Nature Electronics and further suggests that microwaves operating in the continuous range of frequencies can meet the needs of these applications.
For that purpose, scientists have taken a new direction in computing.
The lead study author Bal Govind at Cornell University said in an official statement, “Because it’s able to distort in a programmable way across a wide band of frequencies instantaneously, it can be repurposed for distinctive computing tasks.”
Meanwhile, the chip utilizes analog waves in the microwave range of the electromagnetic spectrum within an artificial intelligence (AI) neural network to create a scale-like pattern in the microwave’s waveform.
On the contrary, the microwave brain chips use electromagnetic networks within tunable waveguides to scrutinize patterns in datasets.
The chip is effective for solving simple logic operations, such as analyzing patterns in high-speed data with an 88% accuracy rate.
The study further suggests that this technology could completely transform computing by incorporating extremely powerful processors that can process data streamers at the order of tens of gigahertz.
Additionally, this speed surpassed that of most home-computer processors that commonly operate between 2.5 and 4 GHz (2.5 billion to 4 billion operations per second).
