Embryonics: The Birth of Synthetic Life

A novel architecture descending from the work of von Neumann, has been developed. This architecture borrows its main principles from living systems. Like living beings, the organisms considered here are able to autonomously develop, maintain their functionality and reproduce. These genomic architectures are developed on reprogrammable hardware. They are not restricted to a given class of functions but accept any combinational and sequential function to be downloaded. These architectures are fault tolerant by design, so they can adapt to failures affecting the silicon. They autonomously evolve so as to maintain their functionality and hence self-reconfigure when needed.