Ali Hajimiri and his team designed a chip which contains a secondary processor that jumps into action when parts of the chip become compromised. If the bulk of the chip is damaged the secondary processor uses a bit of quick-thinking to figure out how the chip can still perform tasks. The chip is also able to tweak itself on the fly, and can be programmed to focus more on saving energy or performance speed.
The team tested the self-healing capabilities of the chip by blasting it with a laser, taking out around half of its transistors. The microchip took a handful of milliseconds to deal with the loss and move on. When the chip wasn’t blasted by a laser was it could increase its efficiency by reducing its power consumption by half.
According to Hajimiri, the technology behind this self-healing circuit can be applied to any kind of circuit, as the secondary processor is tucked away safely underneath the main unit.