European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 07, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse All along there have been two thrusts toward greater Speed the much discussed supercomputer and the less visible super hip. The Appeal of the supercomputer has been its great flexibility. The chips on the other hand Are extremely specific in their tasks. Vrsic chips being produced by Pentagon contractors in 36 varieties Are designed to do single jobs and do them exceedingly Well. Vrsic is also different from the race Lor powerful memory chips an Arena in which the japanese i have excelled. Memory no advances Are mainly achieved by repetition of electronic elements and Good Quality control whereas the design of the advanced id Central processing units that Are the brains of computers and some specialized types of memory is much 8 More challenging and remains out of japanese reach. In they re Good in Al implementation not innovation said Gene Strull general manager for the advanced Tec. Ology division of the v. Sting House electric corporation a Vrsic contractor. N the High Speed chips Are so attractive that Many european nations have asked for the v technology a request the Security conscious Pentagon has turned Down. There s no to said Francois Heusbourg an official at a French electronics company and former International Security adviser to the French minister of defense. Vrsic has tremendous Promise but the program is comply Italy closed to the the Lix american Pioneer of Vrsic technology Are Honeywell Hughes aircraft International business machines corp., Texas instruments try i teamed with Motorola and Westinghouse teamed 3 with National semiconductor. The program begun in 1980 is scheduled to receive More than $1 billion 18 from the government by the time it ends around 1990. The first chips Are just appearing in military i systems with vastly More powerful ones on the horizon. According to Pentagon officials Vrsic has two ii goals. The first phase which ends this year Aims at the creation of chips with clock rates the Speed at a tember. 1985 which they process data of 25 million Hertz or cycles per second. The second phase is aimed at clock rates of 100 million Hertz. By contrast the Central processors in most Home computers today run at one million or two million Hertz at Best. The speedup is achieved by shrinking a Chip s key elements. The limit on a Chip s swiftness is determined mainly by the time it takes electricity. New will revolutionize the design of everything from to Nett to toll Lite. Moving at the Speed of Light to Flash from one component to another. By using the breakthroughs of materials science to shrink the distance Between the transistors and other components on a Chip everything can Happer Asci. The Industry Standard for the size of components is now about 3 microns a human hair being some 100 microns wide. Phase one of Vrsic achieved feature sizes of 1.25 microns while phase two Aims at half a Micron. An added allure of the incredible shrinking Chip is the achievement of greater Power Many More components being Able to be squeezed into a Small space. Phase two chips will contain tens of millions of transistors it s been fascinating to watch these said Jack Kilby who in 1958 co invented the silicone Chip and later helped develop the Vrsic program. We be come further and faster than anyone the High Speed of Vrsic technology Are opening new realms in the digital revolution according to scientists and government officials in the past chips set their own Agenda and Pace but now Vrsic technology is accelerating the trend by which chips take on challenges and the extremely High Recd of some Phenomena in the real world Al Hie heart of these development is the ability to represent lightning Quick Phenomena precisely or digital form rather than in imprecise Waves As in analog systems. Digital systems represent information in the form of pulses that Are either on or Olf. But not in Between allowing Lor great precision. In contrast analog systems represent information in the form of Waves such As a television signal or the grooves of a record. But the Waves and the analogous signals they create in electrical systems can be imprecise and subject to interference. The digital Domain is getting said Thomas a Zimmerman a Vrsic scientist at try in California. Vrsic technology is supporting the natural evolution of All electronic systems to become More digital and less analog. The dividing line has naturally been moving toward digital but Vrsic is speeding that natural in most cases digital processing Means huge increases in accuracy. Digital watches Are More exact than analog ones. Pictures radioed Back to Earth from Distant planetary probes can be processed digitally to remove Static and produce stunning photographs of Jupiter or Saturn. The Vrsic revolution is starting to allow the digital processing of such radio signals very quickly almost in real or As soon As they Are received. According to Strull at Westinghouse. A typical Vrsic goal is to be Able to digitally process signals in radar receivers on aircraft. Which operate to at about 10.000 million Hertz. We can t process digitally at that Speed yet he said. So we take the frequency reduce it to a lower frequency with losses All the Way. Until we can digest the some specific Vrsic projects include ones with application to smart flying bombs sonar buoys that detect enemy submarines jamming pods for electronic warfare radars electronic packages for lighter aircraft sonar guided torpedoes surface to air missiles and tank weapon control systems. Vrsic Type digital technology is already starting to make inroads into civilian markets promising a quiet revolution in All kinds of devices that process electromagnetic signals. For instance digital chips will eventually be used in color television sets. Scientists say television signals will continue to be broadcast in analog form but digital television sets will quickly convert the incoming signal into digital lorm processing it that Way and opening up a wide Range of new possibilities. Instant calculations could be made Tor instance to improve picture Quality by removing ghosts the double images that plague reception particularly in Large cities. Pictures could also be stored in computer memories and Frozen on the screen. Or viewers could watch several channels at once or freeze a particular picture Frame and zoom in for close ups. Not All observers Are sanguine about the Pentagon s efforts to Pioneer the development of High Speed chips. The congressional general accounting office recently charged that the Vrsic program had fallen behind its goals. Pentagon and Industry officials disagree contending that whatever delays have been encountered Are Normal for so ambitious an undertaking. If nothing else was developed the program has already been a Success said Strull of Westinghouse. The stars and stripes Page 15
