Semiconductor maker Micron has today announced a fundamentally new computing architecture capable of performing high-speed, comprehensive search and analysis of complex, unstructured data streams.

Micron's Automata Processor, which was announced at the Supercomputing 2013 conference, is an accelerator that leverages the intrinsic parallelism of memory which the company claims will dramatically improve computing capabilities in areas such as bioinformatics, video/image analytics, and network security, applications which normally pose challenges for conventional processor architectures because of the amount of complex, unstructured data.

"Micron has an intense focus on the development of innovative and advanced silicon solutions that help our customers solve their most challenging computing problems," said Brian Shirley, vice president of Micron's DRAM Solutions Group. "This announcement is a huge step forward for Micron and has the potential to unleash unprecedented levels of computing power."

"The Automata Processor is a breakthrough technology that is designed to use advanced memory-based processing to solve complex computing challenges that existing solutions are not able to tackle effectively," said Chirag Dekate, IDC Research Manager, HPC. "This technology has the potential to solve some of the world's most complicated data-intensive challenges, including real-time security that could dramatically affect anti-terrorism efforts, or the highly efficient analysis of complex plant genomes that could allow scientists to rapidly advance their research agendas beyond what is possible today."

Additionally, Micron and the University of Virginia today announced an agreement to establish the Center for Automata Computing at the University of Virginia.

“We are pleased that U.Va. will be the first-in-class to lead the nation and world in demonstrating this new computing technology,” U.Va. Vice President for Research Thomas C. Skalak said. “U.Va. is committed to stand at the frontiers of knowledge and pioneer new transformational advances with benefit to society.”

Micron promises that graphic design and simulation tools, along with a software development kit (SDK), to enable developers to design, compile, test, and deploy their own applications using the Automata Processor will be available in 2014.

By: DocMemory
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