Inspired by the brain, many researchers have long tried to develop a kind of ionic calculus in an aqueous solution. Although ions in water move slower than electrons in semiconductors, it is believed that the diversity of ionic species with different physical and chemical properties can be exploited for richer and more diverse information processing.
Microprocessors in smartphones, computers and many other devices process information by manipulating electrons through solid semiconductors, but our brains have a different system: they rely on the manipulation of ions in a liquid medium to process information.
Ion computing, however, is still in its infancy. To date, laboratories have only developed individual ion devices, such as ion diodes and ion transistors, but until now, no one has put many of these devices together into a more complex circuit for computation.
The researchers, in collaboration with the biotech company DNA Script, developed an ion circuit composed of hundreds of ion transistors and performed a centralized computation process of the neural network.
This technological feat was achieved by the team led by Woo-Bin Jung, of the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), an entity connected to Harvard University in the United States.
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Source: NCYT
