Researchers at the University of Virginia have developed a tiny circuit that may form part of most new integrated circuits (chips to you). This device is an early warning system to flag up when the chip is close to wearing out.
Yes that right, chips wear out, just like everything else. The problem has been made worse by the amazingly small scales used these days in order to get huge amounts of circuitry on just one chip, so some modern ECUs may only last ten years.
That means that when the current crop of highly integrated and highly sophisticated vehicles become affordable to the many, there is a good chance that the whole system will ‘go screwy’, and that could be the end of an otherwise perfectly usable car.
This is opening up a market for replacement parts that can integrate into the complex vehicle systems, and a number of ECU manufacturers are rising to the challenge, but with some cars having up to 10 control units dotted around, replacing them all at over 600 quid a time is unlikely to be an option.
The up side is that there will be a large number of very powerful engines arriving in your friendly local scrap yard, Porsche V10 anyone? Along with their big brakes, diffs suspension parts, it could be a golden age for kit cars!
Ironically, cars made ten or twenty years ago have chips which are less densely populated and are likely to out last there modern counterparts.
Retro lives!