NEW CHIP ARCHITECTURE FOR ACCELARATION OF GIS DATA AND IMAGERY

Of the many new technologies developed in the last ten years, very few are actually innovative. One true innovation is a multigenerational advance in computer chip technology called DAP/DNA (Digital Application Processor with Distributed Network Architecture. Adopted broadly, the impact of this new chip on the sciences is unimaginable. DAP/DNA processing is a new computer chip architecture that results in a type of re-configurable computer. It is faster than any architecture in existence. More importantly it was developed so that it can be applied in existing hardware and software. Furthermore, it is re-configurable "on the fly". That means that end users can take advantage of new hardware and software in the future and expect DAP/DNA to automatically reconfigure itself without user interface. This new chip can be applied in any processing environment and it is 100's to 10's of thousands times faster than conventional computers. Currently, computers sequentially process instruction. This processing speed is not enough for the sophisticated imagery and data processing common to Geologic studies. In a robust Geological sciences program a large percentage of the budget must be invested in hardware and software with the guarantee that it will become your legacy system for a very long time. The DAP/DNA processor has a new architecture containing two different processors. One is conventional sequential processor (CPU) and another is parallel processing dataflow machine (DNA matrix). Unlike other re-configurable computers, the DAP/DNA processor has been designed with high-end performance digital processing in mind. With this processing speed science is in for some shake ups.