Engineers at Xerox PARC have announced that they have succesfully developed a computer chip that will self-destruct after use. The groundbreaking technology was demonstrated at DARPA's "Wait, What" event held in St. Louis last Thursday.
The technology is made of Corning Gorilla glass, the material used in the displays of many mobile devices today. The chip is fabricated in the glass substrate, which is heavily stressed so that it easily shatters and disntegrates once triggered, according to Engadget.
The trigger can be in the form of laser, radio signal and even a switch. Once the circuit mechanism is turned on, a small resistor heats the glass, triggering it to shatter into thousands of tiny fragments, PC World reported. It also continues to shatter into yet smaller pieces for ten seconds.
The new chip is expected to become useful in high security situations, such as those usually depicted in spy movies. This is the case, for example, if the chip contains an encryption code that needs to be immediately disposed off after the data has been collected so that it will not fall on the wrong hands.
The technology, which is included in DARPA's Vanishing Programmable Resources project, has been demonstrated in action, which you can see for yourself below.
DARPA announced a similar concept last year but in partnership with IBM. The organization has awarded the tech company a $3.45 million contract to develop such a technology, reported Information Week. It is not yet clear whether the project pushed through or if it is similar to the one developed by Xerox PARC.
