The End Of Hardware

Drag those windows from your screen and into the air in front of you. Use a simple glance to switch lights, open doors or surf the web. Virtual devices, virtual objects will surround us, anywhere. Only one piece of real hardware will do it all, replace anything. From application concepts to technical design to even a fiction chapter carrying us into the future, "this book is a blueprint for an entire technology". The new edition has been greatly extended, with many new ideas and materials. From the foreword by Oliver Bimber, professor of augmented reality: "I was captivated by the last edition of 'The End of Hardware' on a round-trip flight to Los Angeles. This book is not only an in-depth introduction to the concept of head-attached displays for augmented reality (AR), but also a great source of inspiration for many professionals - at least it is for me. Being a technical guy, I particularly enjoyed reading the technical design chapter which, in this new edition of the book, has been greatly extended with many details on holography, light fields and MEMS. Despite a technological focus, the book is written in a popular-scientific style - and therefore allows easy access to the material - even for non-experts. If I were to characterize this book in a single word, that word would be 'inspiring'. I can only hope that one day, someone will pick up and realize these ideas. For although, this might not be the 'End of Hardware' - it could well be the beginning of many new and exciting interfaces to the digital world in which we all live in."

Massive MIMO (multiple-input–multiple-output) is a multi-antenna technology for cellular wireless communication, where the base station uses a large number of individually controllable antennas to multiplex users spatially. This technology can provide a high spectral efficiency. One of its main challenges is the immense hardware complexity and cost of all the radio chains in the base station. To make massive MIMO commercially viable, inexpensive, low-complexity hardware with low linearity has to be used, which inherently leads to more signal distortion. This thesis investigates how the degenerated linearity of some of the main components—power amplifiers, analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and low-noise amplifiers—affects the performance of the system, with respect to data rate, power consumption and out-of-band radiation. The main results are: Spatial processing can reduce PAR (peak-to-average ratio) of the transmit signals in the downlink to as low as 0B; this, however, does not necessarily reduce power consumption. In environments with isotropic fading, one-bit ADCs lead to a reduction in effective signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR) of 4dB in the uplink and four-bit ADCs give a performance close to that of an unquantized system. An analytical expression for the radiation pattern of the distortion from nonlinear power amplifiers is derived. It shows how the distortion is beamformed to some extent, that its gain never is greater than that of the desired signal, and that the gain of the distortion is reduced with a higher number of served users and a higher number of channel taps. Nonlinear low-noise amplifiers give rise to distortion that partly combines coherently and limits the possible SINR. It is concluded that spatial processing with a large number of antennas reduces the impact of hardware distortion in most cases. As long as proper attention is paid to the few sources of coherent distortion, the hardware complexity can be reduced in massive MIMO base stations to overcome the hardware challenge and make massive MIMO commercial reality. Massiv MIMO (eng: multiple-input–multiple-output) är en flerantennsteknologi för cellulär trådlös kommunikation, där basstationen använder ett stort antal individuellt styrbara antenner för att multiplexa användare i rummet. Denna teknologi kan tillhandahålla en hög spektral effektivitet. En av dess främsta utmaningar är den enorma hårdvarukomplexiteten och kostnaden hos basstationens alla radiokedjor. För att massiv MIMO skall bli kommersiellt attraktivt, måste billiga, enkla hårdvarukomponenter med låg linjäritet användas, vilket oundvikligen leder till mer signaldistorsion. Denna avhandling undersöker hur den försämrade linjäriteten hos några av huvudkomponenterna – effektförstärkare, analog-digital-omvandlare (AD-omvandlare) och lågbrusförstärkare – påverkar systemets prestanda, i termer av datatakt, effektförbrukning och utombandsstrålning. Huvudresultaten är: Rumslig signalbehandling kan reducera sändsignalernas toppvärde i nerlänken ända ner till 0dB, vilket dock inte nödvändigtvis minskar effektförbrukningen. I miljöer med isotrop fädning leder enbits-AD-omvandlare till 4dB lägre signal-till-interferens-och-brus-förhållande i upplänken, och fyrabits-AD-omvandlare ger en prestanda nära den ett system utan kvantisering kan uppnå. Ett analytiskt uttryck för strålningsmönstret för distorsionen från icke-linjära effektförstärkare härleds. Det visar hur distorsionen till viss del lobformas, att dess förstärkning aldrig är starkare än förstärkningen för den önskade signalen och att distorsionens förstärkning minskar med ett högre antal betjänade användare och ett högre antal kanaltappar. Icke-linjära lågbrusförstärkare ger upphov distorsion som delvis kombinerar koherent och begränsar det möjliga signal-till-brus-och-interferens-förhållandet. Slutsatsen är att rumslig signalbehandling med ett stort antal antenner reducerar hårdvarudistorsionens inverkan i de flesta fall. Så länge som de få källorna till koherent distorsion ges tillbörlig uppmärksamhet, kan hårdvarukomplexiteten minskas i basstationer för massiv MIMO för att övervinna hårdvaruutmaningen och göra massiv MIMO kommersiell verklighet. ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????——???????????????——?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Massive MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) base stations have proven, both in theory and in practice, to possess many of the qualities that future wireless communication systems will require. They can provide equally high data rates throughout their coverage area and can concurrently serve multiple low-end handsets without requiring wider spectrum, denser base station deployment or significantly more power than current base stations. The main challenge of massive MIMO is the immense hardware complexity and cost of the base station—each element in the large antenna array needs to be individually controllable and therefore requires its own radio chain. To make massive MIMO commercially viable, the base station has to be built from inexpensive simple hardware. In this thesis, it is investigated how the use of low-end power amplifiers and analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) affects the performance of massive MIMO. In the study of the signal distortion from low-end amplifiers, it is shown that in-band distortion is negligible in massive MIMO and that out-of-band radiation is the limiting factor that decides what power efficiency the amplifiers can be operated at. A precoder that produces transmit signals for the downlink with constant envelope in continuous time is presented to allow for highly power efficient low-end amplifiers. Further, it is found that the out-of-band radiation is isotropic when the channel is frequency selective and when multiple users are served; and that it can be beamformed when the channel is frequency flat and when few users are served. Since a massive MIMO base station radiates less power than today's base stations, isotropic out-of-band radiation means that low-end hardware with poorer linearity than required today can be used in massive MIMO. It is also shown that using one-bit ADCs—the simplest and least power-hungry ADCs—at the base station only degrades the signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio of the system by approximately 4 dB when proper power allocation among users is done, which indicates that massive MIMO is resistant against coarse quantization and that low-end ADCs can be used.

Draw those windows from your PC screen right into plain air. Simply look to switch lights and open doors. Virtual devices, virtual objects will surround us, everywhere. Only one piece of hardware will do it all, replace anything. Technology is ripe for it now. "This is not one of the usual popular science books - this is the blueprint for an entire technology". It is addressed to the interested public as well as to technology experts. It's not just a summary of the already existing, but outlines new and astonishing solutions. Even some science fiction prose is included, to give the reader a hands-on experience of this new technology. 300 pages, 145 illustrations.

Computer Hardware Maintenance presents the full scope and understanding of how the PC hardware maintenance function should operate and be managed in an organization, including steps involved in containing costs, keeping records, and planning the integration of the help desk function. In today's IS department too often the PC hardware maintenance function is treated as a 'necessary evil', with the understanding that eventually all equipment will have some degree of mechanical or electrical failure. This book discusses scenarios where keeping the maintenance function internal is most viable and where having it external, from a depot service, pickup and delivery, or on-site service, is most viable. Computer Hardware Maintenance concludes with brief descriptions of available third-party systems and how emerging trends in PC hardware configuration as proposed by the Desktop Management Task Force (DMTF) will have a major impact on the PC hardware maintenance function in the future.

The classic guide to how computers work, updated with new chapters and interactive graphics "For me, Code was a revelation. It was the first book about programming that spoke to me. It started with a story, and it built up, layer by layer, analogy by analogy, until I understood not just the Code, but the System. Code is a book that is as much about Systems Thinking and abstractions as it is about code and programming. Code teaches us how many unseen layers there are between the computer systems that we as users look at every day and the magical silicon rocks that we infused with lightning and taught to think." - Scott Hanselman, Partner Program Director, Microsoft, and host of Hanselminutes Computers are everywhere, most obviously in our laptops and smartphones, but also our cars, televisions, microwave ovens, alarm clocks, robot vacuum cleaners, and other smart appliances. Have you ever wondered what goes on inside these devices to make our lives easier but occasionally more infuriating? For more than 20 years, readers have delighted in Charles Petzold's illuminating story of the secret inner life of computers, and now he has revised it for this new age of computing. Cleverly illustrated and easy to understand, this is the book that cracks the mystery. You'll discover what flashlights, black cats, seesaws, and the ride of Paul Revere can teach you about computing, and how human ingenuity and our compulsion to communicate have shaped every electronic device we use. This new expanded edition explores more deeply the bit-by-bit and gate-by-gate construction of the heart of every smart device, the central processing unit that combines the simplest of basic operations to perform the most complex of feats. Petzold's companion website, CodeHiddenLanguage.com, uses animated graphics of key circuits in the book to make computers even easier to comprehend. In addition to substantially revised and updated content, new chapters include: Chapter 18: Let's Build a Clock! Chapter 21: The Arithmetic Logic Unit Chapter 22: Registers and Busses Chapter 23: CPU Control Signals Chapter 24: Jumps, Loops, and Calls Chapter 28: The World Brain From the simple ticking of clocks to the worldwide hum of the internet, Code reveals the essence of the digital revolution.

The art of transforming a circuit idea into a chip has changed permanently. Formerly, the electrical, physical and geometrical tasks were predominant. Later, mainly net lists of gates had to be constructed. Nowadays, hardware description languages (HDL) similar to programming languages are central to digital circuit design. HDL-based design is the main subject of this book. After emphasizing the economic importance of chip design as a key technology, the book deals with VLSI design (Very Large Scale Integration), the design of modern RISC processors, the hardware description language VERILOG, and typical modeling techniques. Numerous examples as well as a VERILOG training simulator are included on a disk.