DARPA will create modular computers based on "chiplets"

We have already told you about the so-called "chiplets" - thin silicon plates, in some way rethinking the concept of traditional microcircuits. Designed by engineers from the Palo Alto Research Center (a division of Xerox), chips can be applied in tens and hundreds with special printers on a flat surface. Apparently, the American military agency DARPA was seriously interested in this technology. The new project involves the creation of modular computers based on different sets of chipsets.

DARPA sees the future of the chipsets as follows: if you need a system for fast image processing - we simply collect it from the appropriate chipsets. We need a motherboard for the satellite - just change some of the chipsets to others - and everything is ready. On the official website of the military agency, a corresponding PDF document was published, detailing the essence of the project. However, all this is still at a very early stage of readiness, so there is really nothing to brag about engineers.

It is not yet clear what size and what form the chips will be. All this depends on the specialists who will help DARPA to translate their vision into reality, and it will be the outsiders that will be involved in the project with direct financing from the military budget. It may be that as a result, the components will be large enough and they can be changed by hand, in the likeness of replacing the memory slots. But it may happen that the chiplets can be changed only in the factory with special equipment.

In any case, this system is much more flexible than the one to which we are all accustomed. As a result, electronics should significantly decrease in size, become more oriented to the tasks assigned to it, and also cheaper in production. Considering that many military computer systems are now hopelessly outdated, the introduction of a completely new system will allow us to update the "arsenal" of electronics and catch up with existing technologies.

The article is based on materials https://hi-news.ru/technology/darpa-sozdast-modulnye-kompyutery-na-osnove-chipletov.html.