Evolution on a chip: evolvable hardware aims to optimize circuit design

A group at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology are studying nature's ability to create living systems that can produce energy, process information, self-replicate, self-repair, function with defects, adapt to their surroundings and improve the species over time through evolution. The group is looking at these natural processes in order to translate their underlying principles into the language of information technology - specifically, those aspects that bear on circuit design. Configurable hardware will be the catalyst that ultimately enables the future of information processing systems.