HP and Sun Look to the Future of Computing

February 2, 2005

HP and Sun Microsystems each came out with news this week about innovations in computing they're working on.

HP's Crossbar Latch to Replace Transistors?

HP has demonstrated a technology it refers to as a "crossbar latch," which the company says will allow the development of computers without transistors. You can see the HP release at:

Who Needs Transistors? HP Scientists Create New Computing Breakthrough at Molecular Scale; Research Could Send Transistors the Way of the Vacuum Tube

I was working with electronics during the 1960s and built radios and other devices, some of which used transistors and some of which were designed with vacuum tubes -- so I can appreciate the references in that title.

The HP release describes how the crossbar latch can be used to create logic circuits:

"The experimentally demonstrated latch consists of a single wire acting as a signal line, crossed by two control lines with an electrically switchable molecular-scale junction where they intersect. By applying a sequence of voltage impulses to the control lines and using switches oriented in opposite polarities, the latch can perform the NOT operation, which, along with AND and OR, is one of three basic operations that make up the primary logic of a circuit and are essential for general computing. In addition, it can restore a logic level in a circuit to its ideal voltage value, which allows a designer to chain many simple gates together to perform computations."

Need CPU? Just Plug Into the Sun Grid

The other release, the one from Sun, describes a new business model for grid computing:

Sun Lights Up the Sun Grid – First Global Compute and Storage Grid for $1/cpu-hr and $1/GB-mo

Sun describes Sun Grid, its scheme for access to IT infrastructure, as a "utility offering":

"Sun's new utility offerings include the Sun Grid compute utility, a $1 (USD) per CPU per hour pay-per-use offering ($1/cpu-hr), and the Sun Grid storage utility, a $1 (USD) per gigabyte per month offering ($1/GB-mo). In the coming months, Sun will also roll out additional Sun Grid offerings for the desktop and developer communities."

This quote from Jonathan Schwartz, president and COO at Sun, will give you an idea of the company's marketing pitch for Sun Grid services:

"We encourage all CIOs and CFOs to look into their data centers and ask themselves if they are spending more than $1/cpu-hr, including electricity, HV-AC and labor. We're certain Sun can reduce costs by an order of magnitude, allowing customers to allocate resources toward activities delivering competitive advantage."

Have a special project that requires extra computing power? Just plug into the grid and pay as you go. This excerpt gives you an idea how it works:

"Customers can use it for jobs such as Monte Carlo simulations, protein modeling, reservoir simulations, mechanical CAD simulations and similar non-transactional workloads. The Sun Grid compute utility will deliver a standard computing grid, powered by AMD Opteron(TM) processor-based systems, Solaris 10 OS and N1(TM) Grid Engine, to help provide customers optimal performance, functionality and security.

"With access to the Sun Grid compute utility, customers will be able to avoid long project lead times by simply plugging into the Sun Grid, radically simplifying how they select, acquire and use next-generation IT infrastructure. By using the Sun Grid, customers can "plug into" a powerful, agile, reliable, cost-effective infrastructure, offloading compute power and applications with optimal security. This pay-per-use model enables customers to move capital expenditures to operational expenditures, allowing for more choice and control in how IT power is purchased and leveraged."

AB -- 2/3/05