Kilo-instruction processors: overcoming the memory wall

Historically, advances in integrated circuit technology have driven improvements in processor microarchitecture and led to todays microprocessors with sophisticated pipelines operating at very high clock frequencies. However, performance improvements achievable by high-frequency microprocessors have become seriously limited by main-memory access latencies because main-memory speeds have improved at a much slower pace than microprocessor speeds. Its crucial to deal with this performance disparity, commonly known as the memory wall, to enable future high-frequency microprocessors to achieve their performance potential. To overcome the memory wall, we propose kilo-instruction processors-superscalar processors that can maintain a thousand or more simultaneous in-flight instructions. Doing so means designing key hardware structures so that the processor can satisfy the high resource requirements without significantly decreasing processor efficiency or increasing energy consumption.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Scalable quantum memory in the ultrastrong coupling regime

Circuit quantum electrodynamics, consisting of superconducting artificial atoms coupled to on-chip resonators, represents a prime candidate to implement the scalable quantum computing architecture because of the presence of good tunability and controllability. Furthermore, recent advances have pushed the technology towards the ultrastrong coupling regime of light-matter interaction, where the qubit-resonator coupling strength reaches a considerable fraction of the resonator frequency. Here, we propose a qubit-resonator system operating in that regime, as a quantum memory device and study the storage and retrieval of quantum information in and from the Z2 parity-protected quantum memory, within experimentally feasible schemes. We are also convinced that our proposal might pave a way to realize a scalable quantum random-access memory due to its fast storage and readout performances.Comment: We have updated the title, abstract and included a new section on the open-system dynamic

Thermally stable low current consuming gallium and germanium chalcogenides for consumer and automotive memory applications

The phase change technology behind rewritable optical disks and the latest generation of electronic memories has provided clear commercial and technological advances for the field of data storage, by virtue of the many well known attributes, in particular scaling, cycling endurance and speed, that chalcogenide materials offer. While the switching power and current consumption of established germanium antimony telluride based memory cells are a major factor in chip design in real world applications, often the thermal stability of the device can be a major obstacle in the path to the full commercialisation. In this work we describe our research in material discovery and characterization for the purpose of identifying more thermally stable chalcogenides for applications in PCRAM