New kinds of consumer electronics can't be delivered without new kinds of microchips to make them work. Today's processors just aren't fast enough to deliver what the consumer wants, according to a leading electronics researcher.
Prof John McCanny of Queen's University Belfast spoke in Dublin last night about the latest developments in consumer electronics, from digital television to DVD technology.
He described his own research, work that puts Ireland at the leading edge of emerging silicon-based technologies. Prof McCanny's exceptional endeavours helped him win the 2003 Boyle Medal for Scientific Excellence, an award co-sponsored by the Royal Dublin Society and The Irish Times.
"We are seeing the emergence of new kinds of consumer technologies," he told his audience. "What I am arguing is taking conventional silicon-based microprocessors and speeding them up is not enough to get us to where we want to be quickly enough."
His own approach involves designing wholly new types of microchips allied with advanced mathematics that can speed up the processing of any type of digital signal, whether sound, image or satellite broadcast.
It involves "tuning the silicon to the mathematics", Prof McCanny said. "It is not just new performance. It is trying to do the most efficient computing you can do with each atom of silicon."
It is all based on the compression of information into the smallest possible space, he explained. "It is like what you have on your Sky box, you are trying to get as many channels as you can across the band width available. A huge amount of mathematics is required."
His advanced designs are already finding their way into consumer products through his company, Amphion Semiconductor Ltd. He hopes to have a greater impact on the world electronics industry as director of Queen's new £35 million (€58 million) Institute for Electronics, Communications and Information Technology, in the new Northern Ireland Science Park in Belfast Harbour.
