UCLA Chemists Progress Toward Molecular Computers

Concepvelo writes "It is very refeshing to see Professor Stoddart (my organic chem professor last quarter) and Pat Collier making progress toward molecular computers. Stoddart's team has created molecules that can be switched hundreds of times, where before they could only be switched once. They are saying that the creation of Molecular RAM is one step closer because all of this can be done at room temp. The article is here."

Comments

But it's one of the parts that needs the most work

[devphil]

I agree with you, I just want to expand on something:

...memory is only part of a computer. Yes, an important part, but only a part.

And it's the part that can benefit the most from this kind of thing. Not for size, but for speed. The speed of memory access is often the controlling factor in how fast a program runs. It doesn't matter if you just bought a 6000 terahertz CPU; if your memory is slow, your processor only waits more.

Currently CPUs are on the order of ten times as fast as the processor, and the gap is increasing. We need faster memory more than we need faster anything else. (Well, maybe faster pizza delivery.)