Karl Fant wants to get rid of clocks. They're too rigid, too expensive, and they take up too much space. The clocks in question reside within computer chips, governing the pace at which information is processed. Find a way to junk the clocks, and you can build faster, cheaper, smaller, and more efficient processor chips.Scientists and engineers have struggled with the clock problem for decades. Fant thinks he's found an answer. His study of computer programs and biological systems led to a new theoretical model that serves as the foundation for Theseus Logic Inc., a Minnesota company that hopes to license his ideas to the world's chipmakers.The insights helped Fant break the constraints of Boolean logic, which has served as the basis of computer design since computers began. Fant's Null Convention Logic doesn't require the synchronizing clocks of Boolean systems. Instead, NCL-based circuits communicate with one another as soon as information is ready for processing, regardless of artificial timing issues. The result, he says, is a chip that is roughly 50 percent cheaper to design and 40 percent less power hungry than today's average circuit.Theseus unveiled Null Convention Logic in August 1996, and to date, the company has produced seven working prototype chips. Little has been published about the designs, but Fant and Theseus president Ken Wagner pulled off a US$1.9 million private stock offering in 1996 and have plans for another offering in 1997. Development efforts are supported by a $2.3 million DARPA contract, and the company has also launched an alliance with a Lockheed Martin subsidiary to test the chip in the F-22 fighter plane test bed. Linley Gwenapp, editor in chief of Microprocessor Report, points out that "there are a hundred ways a technology can fail despite working prototypes." He's right, but that hasn't turned off execs from Intel and Motorola, who are watching Theseus closely to see if the company's chip can solve some of the problems big manufacturers face as they struggle to engineer faster and more complex chips into ever shrinking spaces.While touting its chip's ability to run at different speeds (depending on processing needs) and the ease with which engineers can connect independently designed chips, Theseus is aiming high. "Our business paradigm is to become the Dolby Sound Systems of computing," Wagner boasts. "We will live to see the world operating on Null Convention Logic."
SCANS
Unconventional Logic
