Nano-sized Microchips? HP Says So.

ImaLamer writes: "A C|Net News story is reporting that HP has announced they have made breakthroughs that 'help turn out powerful computers that fit on the head of a pin with room to spare.' Also in the article, that the patent announced Wednesday, will produce no two chips that are the same. 'Each one will be customized for a particular function,' says Stanley Williams, the chemist on the team. The work was done by himself, Phil Kuekes, a computer architect, and James Heath, a UCLA professor. The chips use nanowires and the chips are said to be even less than the size of bacterium. Sounds cool enough. The biggest part of the breakthrough isn't the chips themselves, but that HP plans to be able to 'fix' chips which come out with imperfections, thus saving money on an already cheap process."

Comments

Interesting story...

[Uttles]

So much so that I posted it this morning, only from the Yahoo! site: HP Says Atom-Sized Computer Chips a Lot Closer

The fact that they are going to be able to fix the chips is a big breakthrough, but the biggest thing here is the process for making the chips. They are breaking the chips into different functional areas, and this is what enables (indirectly) the capability to do "chip fixing."

Re:Interesting story...

[ImaLamer]

Sorry I stole your story :(

But I was trying to keep the intro light on the details. The idea of breaking the chips into different areas is really cool to me.

Why aren't we doing this now? I know the we are doing this to some extent, but we keep developing faster chips... but are they getting smarter?

Re:Interesting story...

[caesar-auf-nihil]

I'm not so sure that fixing the chips is a big breakthough, as it sounds like they're suggesting they'll get a lot more defects and not be able to mass produce chips. In fact, the comment that almost each chip will be different suggests a serious problem with their approach.

Remember all the stink over the Pentium II (or was it III?) that had some computing errors in numbers past the 6 or 7th digit? Now if no two chips are the same, how are you going to guarentee that chip A runs a protocol correctly when chip B, designed for the same application, has all its chip-innards set up differently, such that certain logic gates work differently and give different results for the same protocol? Perhaps each chip will indeed be customizable, but if you're producing 1000s of chips per day, do you really want 1000 different chips if you've got orders for 950 in one application and 50 in another? If no chips are the same due to this technology, what a QC nightmare this would be. No one would by it because they could never guarentee that your PC is going to act the same as everyone else's.

I don't know, the whole thing sounds quarter-baked, not even half-baked. My concern is that when these type of annoucements come out, it suggests that the company:
A) Is so far ahead of everyone else they can afford to brag and advertise thier technological edge.
B) Has developed something that's great for technological capablity PR, but is so impossible or impractical to put into practice that revealing its existance is designed to throw competitors off track. Companies tend to publish results when they can't patent it or if they think others are getting ready to patent it and they want to prevent others from getting exclusive rights to it.

I'll admit there is the possiblity HP is onto something, but I think category B above is probably more appropriate here.

Re:Interesting story...

[Uttles]

You're not using the correct frame of reference here. This is a completely new technology, an amazing acheivement. It will take another equally impressive breakthrough before it will be possible to produce these chips with zero defects. The thing is, with this process they produce the chips, they're all unique, then another process automatically customizes the chips. Therefore, it is in fact possible to mass produce these things.

Re:Interesting story...

[ackthpt]

Atom sized, my foot. What kinda atom would this be? An atom of Hewlettpackardium with an atomic weight of 6 billion and has a life of 1.04e-77 seconds?

I'm fascinated by how much CPU packaging has grown. The 4004 was a tiny DIP package, 8088 a larger DIP package, 386-486 square and many pins, 586/Athlon/SPARC/Alpha/Itanium big square or rectangular package with lots and lots of pins. Add to this the power consumption and waste heat disposal. Shrinking tech isn't advancing as fast as performance requirements are making it grow. :)

Re:Interesting story...

[caesar-auf-nihil]

I think (notice I say "I think") that I am using the correct frame of reference based on what was written in the article. Right now, you can make a normal chip with zero defects. If any current chip designs have a defect, then what happens is the circuit on the chip can't work properly, and its logic functions are basically garbage. For computer companies to make a profit, they currently have to make chips at almost 99%+ effeciency, so that they throw away very few chips per silicon wafer. Given the high cost to produce them, every single chip is highly valuable, and the higher the defect cost, the more espensive it is to produce those same chips. HP would go out of business real quick if they pursued this strategy for mass chip manufacture.

What I'm unsure of, based on the article (and is why I say "I think...") is that this technology is really completely new. If its based on the next logical step (or even two steps ahead) on lithography, then it's not that new an idea, and their defects are actually due to the inability to produce circuits with lines smaller than 100 nm with precision. Not surprising, most other people have a hard time doing this at the moment when using lithography. Now if the technology is truly atomic, such that we're looking at molecular computing, then what they are proposing is indeed completely new technology, and it is an amazing achievement.

That being said, any process that produces unique chips each time cannot guarentee than any one chip will work the same as the others, as the well defined architechture of logic and/or/nor gates needed to get reproducible CPU calculations has been randomized from chip to chip, and therefore, no chip will work the same as its brethren made via the same process which creates these new atomic sized chips/CPUs. At the scales they're talking about, I have a hard time believing they'll be able "customize" each chip to the desired configuration. Basically, they'll have to "fix" each chip after production, which means they'll have to map out each chip and find out what it looks like before they can customize it. That is a HUGE amount of work to do just to get 1 chip out the door and into a working PC or device.

I could be very wrong - but based on what they're promoting in the article, I'm not so sure they're onto something which we can use now, or even 50 years from now.

Re:Interesting story...

[dhovis]

Stan Williams, one of the guys mentioned here, came to my department to give a talk about the work they were doing at HP about 2 years ago.

What they are doing is really facinating, and it's not quite as simple as just re-programming the chip when they come off the line. The chips will continue to develop defects, even during service.

The way they get around this is to design a fault tolerant processing scheme. When you drop the sizes down as much as these people are, you get a several order of magnitude increase in the number of transistors, so you can afford to have the chip do the same calculation, say 500 times in different sections of the chip. The chip itself can figure out what sections are bad, and stop using them on its own.

HP actually built a full size computer where they designed some ASICs that computed using lookup tables (!). They had them fabed and asked the fab to send them the defective chips along with the good ones. They then mixed the good chips and bad chips together (I think it was like a 1/2 good/bad ratio) and hired a high school student to hook up the wiring. Now keep in mind that even on the "defective" chips, part of the chip still worked. It only takes 1 defect to spoil a traditional chip. On the whole, the components on the chips had about a 3% defect rate.

The whole thing ran at a whopping 1MHz and may not have been wired up exactly to specifications, but it was "programmed" with a standard computer first to find the defects and route around them. Performance wise, it was on par with the fastest HP workstations of the day. (there's the MHz myth for you)

So the idea here is to design chips that have so many circuits that you can afford to build in fault tolerance. What is more, you can afford to have the chips constantly checking themselves looking for new faults.

In short, zero defect tolerence is not necessarily a good thing. One defect in one transistor can render a Pentium processor worthless. The smaller you make them, and the more transistors you add, the harder it will be to achieve defect free parts. Yields go down, price goes up.

And if you don't believe me, they published an article in Science about the computer they built (it was called Teramac IIRC)

Re:Interesting story...

[4of12]

No one would by it because they could never guarentee that your PC is going to act the same as everyone else's.

A valid concern, and certainly one that I would have.

Upon further reflection, though, I thought of this analogy:

The brains and nervous systems of any two human beings are absolutely different. Yet, you can program them (education) so that they can perform the same function (eg, produce consistently spelled words of a language.

Of course, programming humans is more involved than programming silicon, but at least it suggests to me that different underlying physical architecture does not preclude having consistent functionality. [Yes, you can argue that the yield of properly functioning humans is not all that great, but, hey, there's hope.]

Re:Interesting story...

[mac.newbold]

For computer companies to make a profit, they currently have to make chips at almost 99%+ effeciency, so that they throw away very few chips per silicon wafer.

I hate to nitpick, but you really should check your stats before spouting them off like that. A chip manufacturer making something like a P3/P4 or Athlon chip with those kind of yields would own the world by now. Nobody making big (by area) chips these days has yields anywhere near that high. Even 90% is doing good. They often range much lower than that, 80% and worse even, but because of the high price of the good ones that they sell, they still barely make a profit. The way the Intels and AMDs keep on going is by selling a lot of them, not by making much of a profit on each one. For DRAM memory, yields are often around 50%. So don't assume that they need to get 99+% yield to make a profit. There are a lot more variables in that equation that they can and do work with.

Mac

Re:Interesting story...

[ImaLamer]

The article states that the chips are cheap to make anyways.

Please...

Re:Interesting story...

[dragonfly28]

Its indeed true that it will be very hard for HP to prove wether their chips all fit to same standard and capabilities, since all the cips are custom made not one will be compeletely identical to another. Theferefor one chnages more than one element in a complex scientific problem.

wasn't it one of the first rules: when comparing two things with eachother not more then one they must not differ more than one property.
Otherwise one is not able to tell anything from the results obtained.

And a product in this bussiness should be compareable to one of its own kind, i.e. how is HP going to be able guarantee that my processor is going to be just as good as yours?

Furthermore this should like a nice press realease and nice scientific work done but a practical applications lie far in the future.

More information at Yahoo!

[HMC CS Major]

Yahoo has more information, saying that they have "patented a process they said on Wednesday would eventually help turn out powerful computers which fit on the head of a pin with room to spare." It's nice to see that there's still some life left in the company.

Re:More information at Yahoo!

[Paradise Pete]

eventually help turn out powerful computers which fit on the head of a pin with room to spare

Room to spare - so then angels don't actually get booted off, they just have to dance over in the corner.

Stupid Patent

[Henry V .009]

Stupid Patent of the Week Award.

All they are doing is saying that they are going to isolate the parts from each other so that they operate independantly. This means that if one part is screwed up, you won't have to throw away the entire chip. This is done in all high process cost engineering designs. Nothing new to see here, move along.

This is Great

[Nobody's Hero]

I'm excited about this. Hopefully fully functional and marketable Nano Machines are soon to follow. The ability to fix these chips is a big break through as well. Soon....yesss....Soon.....

Nanochips + Nanomachines = NanoBots

[Da VinMan]

I know this is all still a bit sci-fi, but if we could finally put together NanoBots.... it kinda boggles the imagination.

It has applications in:
-consumer electronics
-medicine
-military (covert, weapons, etc.)
-industrial machinery
-nano-tech - nano-bots that construct other nano-bots
-ad infinitum...

It makes me light headed just thinking about it. Must be all that vapor.

;+)

Re:Nanochips + Nanomachines = NanoBots

[s0l0m0n]

Not really that related though. There isn't anything in this discovery that is specifically going to allow us to do those thing, but it certainly helps to facilitate the process.

Re:Nanochips + Nanomachines = NanoBots

[Da VinMan]

Umm... like I said:

"Must be all that vapor."

Re:Nanochips + Nanomachines = NanoBots

[Anonymous Coward]

Freakiest thing about NanoBots:
Grey Ooze...
Not only the fact that it means extermination, but that we already have a coined name for it...

Re:Nanochips + Nanomachines = NanoBots

[MrZaius]

-medicine

Can you say "NetBSD Cornea Port"? :)

Re:Nanochips + Nanomachines = NanoBots

[snatchitup]

Not to mention....

Pest Control.... Due to globalization.

You see. There are these
ants that won't go away. They are mutants from Argentina that when brought over to America on coffe boats spread like wild fire. They are like the Borg.

I need some nano-bots to go an eat every one of them.

Re:Nanochips + Nanomachines = NanoBots

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they're called "nanites".

Re:Nanochips + Nanomachines = NanoBots

[duren686]

I think you meant this.

A question of workability

[Marx_Mrvelous]

Since somewhere alnog the line, we hyave to connect these micro-computers to keyboard, mice, speakers, monitors... how do we make these interconnections? I wonder if efficiency is lost along the busses neccesary for these to work.

Re:A question of workability

[dissy]

Your comments arnt totally true in every sense. Most embedded systems have none of the parts you listed above. And custom solution chips are what these are for anyways (atleast at the start)

Later once the bottle necks of 'desktop' equepment such as keyboards monitors etc is solved, then these chips will start finding their way to the desktop.

I dont have the URL handy, but i recal reading an article somewhere about scientists creating a nanoscale enzime that generates electricity in the same manor our bodys do, by breaking down chemicals (food), producing waste and energy.
The research was going to making them provide enough energy specificly to power these nano scale parts with a small food supply.

We are well on the way to being able to manipulate the universe in a way to construct devices on the same scale as life is built upon.
I only hope these things can be realized before the end of my lifetime.

New topic!

[sulli]

thanx from yer hp fans

One thing I'd like to see

[RC514]

All the advances in chip design and manufacturing make computing hardware a big player game. One thing I'd really like to see is a technology which enables hobbyists to create microchips on a small scale. There are a few open source hardware projects around, but when it comes to manufacturing, only high numbers can be produced at reasonable costs. This advancement, promising no two chips will be the same, sounds a lot like what I want.

Re:One thing I'd like to see

[JustAnother AI]

some things need to be big. I consider my self to be of at least average inteligence and it would be fun to customise hardware. But at the expence of effective hardware?

Re:One thing I'd like to see

[Anonymous Coward]

Here are some great tools to make one-of-a-kind projects.

Starting on page 211, and going on for dozens of pages, in this 30.7MB PDF file, there are ways of getting started, and you can see how much it will cost you.

No. I am not spamming. I'm just trying to help, and I don't work at Digikey.

Re:One thing I'd like to see

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the hints but I was hoping for a more "on-chip" development. My impression is that connecting several off-the-shelf chips to do what you want is where bottlenecks appear: Speed (need a fast bus: smaller is better, lower power requirements for on-chip communication), price (paying for chip packaging several times, bigger circuit boards) and pinout problems. Programmable logic is a step in the right direction, but truly customized chips would take that idea much further if they were available at a hobbyist-friendly pricepoint. Most people would probably just want to combine cores even if they had complete freedom over chip design, but I think that opening the chip design process itself to a larger group of developers could create some fascinating and innovative development.

Wow...

[Rayonic]

They keep on making those Vacuum Tubes smaller and smaller.

nanoscience news site

[Adrian Voinea]

If you're interested in nanoscience generally, like I am, or in nano-sized microchips especially, you can find some cool info and news at the nanoscience.ch site.

It is new though...

[Da VinMan]

Not my area but...

It's new because they currently do have to throw away the chip, for a number of reasons. If you eliminate the traditional materials and start using nano-circuits, then don't you eliminate all the usual reasons you would discard a chip?

Granted the concept isn't new, but isn't this still going to make circuit production a lot cheaper?

Re:It is new though...

[Henry V .009]

They can't even build the chip in the first place. This is a concept for insanely expensive nanochips that cost a million dollars a piece, where you can't afford to throw away the chip. It will never be applied to modern chips that cost a few bucks each.

Re:It is new though...

[MoneyT]

Ironicaly, I believe the smae basic thing was said about the GUI. "Too expensive, will never replace the cheap text interfaces." No, the chips may be extreamly expensive now, but most certainly this is a step in teh right direction.

Remember, even today's chips used to be immansly expensive.

Re:It is new though...

[Henry V .009]

The chips are not extremely expensive now. They are non-existent. I could get a patent on the copper wire coils I use in my (yet unbuilt) perpetual motion machine with Super-Duper Mega Death Ray Laser Output (TM), but in the end all I have patented is some dumb wire coils.

I now see that I have been moderated down to -1 on my original post. Since someone obviously wants to stop you from reading it, I'll make a couple of claims for it here. It was completely accurate, on topic, and interesting. I called the patent stupid, but backed up my statement. Whoever disagreed has failed to do the same. I wonder if I should change my sig to "Goddamn Slashdot moderators".

Re:It is new though...

[joshsisk]

Yeah, and no one will ever need more than 64k of RAM, either.

Re:It is new though...

[GigsVT]

HEY MAN I RESENT THAT STATEMENT. RIGHT N
OW I AM ON MY COMMODORE 64 AND IT WORKS F
INE FOR EVERYTHING I NEED TO DO. 40 COLO
UMNS IS ENOUGH FOR ANYONE. ALSO WHO EVER
HEARD OF PUTTING MORE THAN ONE PROGRAM I
NTO RAM AT ONCE? THATS INSANE! WELL HAV
E A GOOD DAY -- GIGS

Added to get past lameness filter:
the voices in my head tell me to use less caps... well mr lameness filter, that sort of makes my message not very funny without all those caps. I guess it is a form of censorship, when I can't even type what I want to. That's the worst kind of censorship, prior restraint, oh well, more /. hypocracy.

Re:It is new though...

[MoneyT]

The difference of course being that I have more faith in HP finaly producing a finished product based on the technologies they are patenting rather than in you and your perpetual motion machine. (Though if you finaly do develop it, I'll glady preform the beta tests on the death ray)

Re:It is new though...

[Henry V .009]

I have faith in nanotechnology as well. It's a great area. But this patent is not a technological breakthrough in any sense of the word.

Now, about those beta tests...

Maybe this is why they are cutting loose their PCs

[drenehtsral]

This could be part of why they are cutting loose their PC division. It seems they've been doing a lot of pure research lately. I hope some of this comes to market soon (within the next 5-10 years) and they aren't just filing speculative patents.

On the humorous side, maybe they can use this tech to start making the HP48gx again and overclock it to 1ghz =:-)

Disclosure

[dthable]

If they repair a chip and then try to sell it to you, do they have to tell you about the repair?

One bacterium says to another....

[hndrcks]

"Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of those?"

Re:One bacterium says to another....

[JonWan]

Or... How many Beowulf clusters will fit on the head of a pin?

and typing on those keyboards will be hell!

Re:One bacterium says to another....

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when is one of the oldest trolls in the world (1, Funny)??? HYPOCRISY!

I wouldn't think so..

[Da VinMan]

Because the repair is pre-sales. Besides, they might not even know the repair occurred if other technology repaired it automatically.

At the end of the line, if the chip passes its test suite, why would they tell us anyway? It works...

Oh yeah...

[Uttles]

Just a little record keeping...
2002-01-24 14:44:32 HP Says Atom-Sized Computer Chips a Lot Closer (articles,news) (rejected)

Oh well

Re:Oh yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably someone either wrote it in earlier than you, got accepted, and they waited till now to post it (they always space out their articles, time-wise); Or you wrote your article like a child, and used buzzwords like "Micro$haft", "L1|\|U>< R00LZ!!1", etc...

Re:Oh yeah...

[Uttles]

Or certain people get pissed off when I post responses like "JonKatz is an idiot" and "CmndrTaco, please stop posting this crap"

Re:Oh yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because people give a shit about your opinions.

Neat, but...

[RareHeintz]

The article was interesting, but thin on details. How fast are these chips? Are they reliable enough to be CPU's? How durable are they - can I put them in clothing?

Anyway, I'll be more jazzed about this development when they get closer to production.

OK,
- B

Re:Neat, but...

[ImaLamer]

The article states that they could be woven into your clothes, yes.

They currently are producing, in some way, these chips. At least enough to test them.

I don't think though, that they will be used as "cpu's" like you maybe thinking. Think devices, medicine, etc.

It would be cool if you had them controlling stuff like your hard drive, and other periph's.

Add in a PCI card Cluster!

Re:Neat, but...

[CTho9305]

I imagine that for a general-purpose CPU, there would be issues with more important sections having errors... but this is still awesome technology. I wonder how you benchmark/rate chips that are unique? ;)

Re:Neat, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I want them in my brain. Quick what's 984*632-75?

Hmm

[Don Negro]

help turn out powerful computers that fit on the head of a pin with room to spare.

So they've hired angels?

I wonder what kind of deal they were able to cut with God.

And all this time I thought Carly was making deals with the Devil...

Re:Hmm

[Tibor the Hun]

either angels or MIGHTY MORPHIN' POWER RANGERS (they always seem to be looking for more powerful items)

Re:Hmm

[mblase]

So they've hired angels?

No, they just bought all their old 386s on eBay. The heavenly host uses handheld computers exclusively nowadays.

Imagine a beowulf cluster of those...

[dNil]

Actually, to some extent that seems to be what Stanley Williams suggests. Has anyone got an idea about how these tiny guys are supposed to actually interact?
Dr Heaths homepage suggests at attempts to construct "molecular based memories and molecular-based communications networks". Sounds slightly peculiar, but interesting enough in the light of what they claim to have accomplished so far!

Reunite Gondwanaland!

Re:Imagine a beowulf cluster of those...

[ImaLamer]

Just about two minutes ago [exactly] I posted saying that a cluster could be cool.

Add-in PCI card cluster! 5 PCI slots? 5 clusters! Although I can't find an ounce on the 'speed' of the chips, I imagine if they worked at the same rate of a 100 Mhz x86 we could have some fun.

Your cell phone might kill your desktop. Pack in enough of them I guess.

But aren't we kind of re-inventing the wheel if we used them to make desktop components? We don't need another CPU. But controlling things such as your hard drive or other components would be cool. Hell, put them in every device in your house. Cluster in your TV!

Re:Imagine a beowulf cluster of those...

[slashpunto]

I also submitted this comment. I propose we call the cluster staphylococci supercomputer

vaporware

[stipe42]

Vaporware . . . chips so small they can be inhaled.

stipe42
www.pcwatch.com

Re:vaporware

[GreyPoopon]

Vaporware . . . chips so small they can be inhaled.

I know this is intended to be funny, but when I read it, it actually frightened me instead. Can you imagine what would happen if this technology were used to manufacture destructive little nanobots that couldn't be seen, but could be inhaled? You think viruses and bacteria are bad? Wait until you see this. Even worse, they can be dynamically programmed from an external source via radio transmitter.

Somebody pinch me and wake me up.

Re:vaporware

[Cutriss]

You think viruses and bacteria are bad?

"I'm sorry I couldn't make it to class yesterday, Dr. Scratchensniff...I caught CIH from a friend of mine yesterday...

Re:vaporware

[Tower]

Kinda reminds me of mites in "The Diamond Age"... nowhere near that level yet, but hey... once the bus get rolling...

Re:vaporware

[Kaa]

Can you imagine what would happen if this technology were used to manufacture destructive little nanobots that couldn't be seen, but could be inhaled?

Yes.

Moreover, people with a much better imagination and command of language than I already imagined this:

Neal Stephenson "The Diamond Age".

Re:vaporware

[gnovos]

know this is intended to be funny, but when I read it, it actually frightened me instead. Can you imagine what would happen if this technology were used to manufacture destructive little nanobots that couldn't be seen, but could be inhaled?

Even better are the nano bots coded to attack only a specific DNA pattern. You could release them into the air and the entire population would be safe except for the one guy you coded the bots to kill. Fun, eh?

Re:vaporware

[Anonymous Coward]

How the heck is this labeled as a troll? Somebody has been drinking too much.

Re:vaporware

[Anonymous Coward]

Is das nicht ein nanobot?

Ya das ist ein nanobot!

Oh du schoene, oh du schoene, oh du schoene Schnitzelbank!

Re:vaporware

[Jeremi]

It gets better still... someone will replace dna_strcmp() with dna_regex() and we'll have nanobots programmed to kill only certain racial groups. Then the shit will really hit the fan...

Re:vaporware

[Hiro Antagonist]

Doritos . . . chips to large they can be inhaled.

Re:vaporware

[gnovos]

Interesting point, though I don't think there is enough diferentiation between the "races" for this to really be viable.

But as long as we are working in the fantasy world, think about nanobots that alter DNA (instead of destroying) on those same "raical" lines. Imagine waking up one day and finding that you are no longer genetically the race you were when you went to bed. Talk about solving the whole discrimination issue overnight!

Re:vaporware

[Anonymous Coward]

Michael Jackson?

Re:vaporware

[adamdlloyd]

wot about some white cloak, pointy hat wearing weirdo just hunting down sicle cell sufferes.....?

Re:vaporware

[joekool]

I have been rereading that book for the last week or so....and it seems every other story on here is straight out of there. I am begining to get a little scared.

This isn't your typical repair

[Uttles]

It's not like they had a functional product and then repaired it, the idea is they pop out this chip and then have to go in and clean it up before it's ready for use. Sort of like at different parts of a car production line where the automated machines pop out the car and humans have to go touch it up and get it ready for the next phase. You could call that a repair but it really is just a "tweak."

An HP Icon!

[Gameshow Bob]

Thank the lord!

concerns...

[duran.goodyear]

you know... chips are pretty damn small already.
wouldn't you be afraid of loosing it? if it's only the size of a bacterium?

other wise. COOL!

Re:concerns...

[mamba-mamba]

Heh, heh.

And how will they put markings on top of a chip that small? 0402 resistors and caps are already really too small for practical markings, and they are MUCH bigger than a bacterium. Also, they tend to get dislodged by surface tension effects when they are soldered. Have to be careful of how the traces lead into the surface mount pads so that the forces all cancel out.

I think we won't see anything as revolutionary as what is described in this article until a lot of other problems are solved. But hey, this is basic research. You can't expect it to develop into a product right away. That's not really the point.

--

Re:concerns...

[damm0]

Yeah! How are you going to write letters on a *package* that small! So funny..

;-)

So, how do we interface to these nanocomputers?

[mfarah]

Ok, let's say that they can make a REALLY small computer. How do we interface to it? Via a REALLY small keyboard? With a REALLY small monitor?

I think this makes more sense if they have some kind of networking capability, and that they'll be able to form some sort of "sensor cluster", much like in the way Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky's Qeng-Ho's network of dust computers worked. Of course, there's still too much to work on for that.

I hope HP begins work on some sort of nanoTCP/IP.

Re:So, how do we interface to these nanocomputers?

[Anonymous Coward]

How do we interface to it?

USB. I mean, like, duh.

Re:So, how do we interface to these nanocomputers?

[Rand Race]

Nanonixies.

Re:So, how do we interface to these nanocomputers?

[eggnet]

How about placing a few million of them on a micro chip and placing _that_ in your computer?
It would require a breakthrough in parallel programming, but hey...

Re:So, how do we interface to these nanocomputers?

[zeno_2]

Hmm... I must have forgotten about the law that says there must be some sort of corrilation between the size of the chip in your pc vs. the size of the keyboard/monitor.

Do you think that just because this chip is small, that means that everything it interfaces with must be just as small?

Re:So, how do we interface to these nanocomputers?

[Tenebrious1]

My physics is a bit rusty, but wouldn't microwaves just smash these nano computers? Or at least knock them about? If they're smaller than the amplitude of the radio wave, then there's no way for it to interpret the wave, right? So communication will have to rely on individual or small groups of electrons passed between these nano-computers.

Re:So, how do we interface to these nanocomputers?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope HP begins work on some sort of nanoTCP/IP.

think really really small packets :)

Re:So, how do we interface to these nanocomputers?

[rtaylor]

Ahh yes... I remember sitting around the corporate mainframe wondering just how one would interface with those damn tiny mini computers. I mean, minurature card punch machines? I won't be able to see the holes!

Seriously though, these things have a tendency to solve themselves. Look at the size of the keyboard compared to the the machines it was originally attached to -- now compare to the ones attached to PDAs. Not alot different (though much more flimsy).

One way or another, I want a map in my watch so I never forget how to get where I'm going. I want another in my door to remind me to take my watch with me.

Heat issues

[kwj8fty1]

The smaller the wires, the more resistance they have. Therefore, they will run hotter. Granted, we won't have much voltage/amperage there, but I'd imaging that these nano-sized chips would have a major heat issue.

Re:Heat issues

[Arpie]

I wonder if the heat could be converted back to electricity, sorta like the Regenerative Braking of the Toyota Prius. It would be really nice to cool things and at the same time use (some of) that energy. Of course, that whole idea isn't new -- see Robert A. Heinlein's Shipstones from "Friday"...

Re:Heat issues

[JustAnother AI]

"The smaller the wires, the more resistance they have." clasic half truth. Resistance is also related to distance.

50's sci fi

[CDWert]

Moving beyond the moot, dosent this all remind you of the kitchen of the future stuff in the 50's or the films from ATT about the Transistor :)

They say a BROAD patent, but actually its pretty specific. it says a "silicon substrate" geuss what no silicon no patent issues, NOW before you get started there are other materials that suit this on a nanoscale much better, some of the RE are better suited to this task, its not a world ender, BUT actually there may be prior art on this, a real good chance.

Interesting is its not JUST HP but UCLA too.
Now you know where all that public (sprinkled with private) funding goes to the companies that run this country.

Amazing Technology

[WndrBr3d]

It's amazing to see the rate in which new techology is anounced to when it is developed. If you look at the newest processors, like a 1.3ghz Duron, you see the copyright on it is in 1999. Thats three years ago that chip was put into production.

Makes you kinda wonder what companies like HP, IBM, Intel, and AMD have in production right now that they haven't announced.

Re:Amazing Technology

[Anonymous Coward]

The copyright is on the "Duron" name, not the technology. However, along the lines of your post, it is commonly held that known technology is 20 years behind released technology. Scary isn't it?

Pintop computing

[copyconstructor]

And I thought the keyboards on handhelds were almost unusable. Yikes.

It will all come to this...

[notfancy]

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd09xx/EWD926. PDF

Fastest to production...

[RampagingSimian]

Wow... seems like HP has capitalized on those hot new compression techniques announced recently.

Now if they can make these machines power themselves forver...

:)

...

[raindog151]

From the HP Nano-chip(tm) manual :

In order to make sure your HP Nano-chip(tm) will continue working, please AVOID the following :

* Windy areas
* Opening windows
* Sneezing
* Breathing
* Movements of any sort
* Using cooling fans

By making sure you follow these simple guidelines, your HP Nano-chip(tm) will provide years of quality computing power!

Re:...

[alcmena]

Reminds me of the Happy Fun Ball from Saturday Night Live.

* Do not touch Happy Fun Ball * If Happy Fun Ball begins to smoke, run and seek shelter. * Do not bounce Happy Fun Ball * ...

Re:...

[evilWurst]

the best one, of course, was "do not taunt Happy Fun Ball"!

Re:...

[Bongo]

In order to make sure your HP Nano-chip(tm) will continue working, please AVOID the following :

HP engineer: And these are the first prototypes we've been able to manufacture of our new nanochips...

Woody Allen: Gee, how much do these cost?

HP engineer: About a billion dollars an ounce

Woody Allen: ah...ah......ATCHOOOOO!

Wow, thats amazing

[Lord Hugh Toppingham]

I've seen some pretty cool stuff that the Japanese have been doing with lasers and nano-polymers. Also with the revolution in quantum optics, and positron-lepton diodes, it looks like we could be in for some real coon technology real soon.

Just about everything we own could become intelligent!

Mechanical antibodies

[gpinzone]

I don't mind having a few thousand of these suckers injected into my bloodstream to fight along side my white blood cells against viruses, bacteria, and cancer cells. My only concern is when some script kiddie hacks into my nanites and takes control of my body. Can you say "goatse?"

PC on a chip?

[Analog Squirrel]

So, hypothetically, since these are all custom made, we could string a bunch of them together to build a complete system much smaller than your average microchip?
Only problem is you might loose your PC in the laundry or accidentally throw it out with your pocket lint... :-)

CNN reports as well.

[jwachter]

CNN is reporting the story too.

Jonathan

Why a Swiss site? [NT]

[Anonymous Coward]

No Text

This is great news...

[SID*C64]

now all I need is a super-titanium water-cooled nano case so I can play Quake on this thing at 150 fps.

allow me to translate this statement

[ruebarb]

"the patent announced Wednesday, will produce no two chips that are the same. "Each one will be customized for a particular function"

Translated: Our QC is SO BAD, we're not going to be able to make two that are exactly the same...we're looking at the M$ "It's not a bug, it's a feature" approach

:)

RB

Small enough to avoid Fiorina?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully these nano-computers will be small enough to avoid notice by HP CEO Fiorina. The last thing you'd want is her offering management advice to the development team!

This can't be right...

[toupsie]

Just a week or so ago, Carly Fiorina was reported to have said that HP was getting out of the personal computer business. So which is it HP? Are you in the PC business or not? Or are these chips only going to go into high endm super-duper, big iron systems?

Re:This can't be right...

[Anonymous Coward]

I really don't think nanocircuitry is currently slated for use in the home PC market, nimrod.

Re:This can't be right...

[bshuttleworth]

Well, actually, teeny-weeny-little iron systems ... =p

Re:This can't be right...

[Grishnakh]

I don't see why they're wasting time with this either. Aren't they planning to abandon processors altogether and just buy Intel's Itanic, the same way Compaq is dumping the Alpha?

Overheating

[Koim-Do]

Won`t clusters of those "chips" just overheat to death in seconds(or less) ?
They seem to be just too dense.

Of course...

[tarsi210]

Seems to me that the general equation is:

Smaller Chip = More Heat = Bigger Fans

So, by that model:

Nanometer Chip = Enough Heat to Barbeque Idado = A 9000 CFM Fan the Size of Utah

And I thought the roar of my PCs was loud now.

Re:Of course...

[caesar-auf-nihil]

Not so. As you get down to smaller scales, sometimes heat dissapation becomes easier as there are different methods of heat release than just fans and heat sink.
Basicailly it depends on the structure of the chip. If its inorganic semiconductors, which have to push heat through a rigid crystalline structure, then they tend to hold onto their heat longer due to poor heat conductivity. Therefore, they tend to heat up and stay heated up, and it takes more effort to cool them.

However, while no details were given, the tech probably won't be inorganic semiconductor based, and therefore could just release heat by the release of energy through the chemical bonds in the structure. You would get some heat, but some of that energy would get converted into moving electrons back and forth in each of the molecular bonds. In fact, its possible that they're relying up on the heat to get certain atoms to jump to higher energy state, thus turning a switch on or off, and when they rapidly cool back down, they activate or shut off the switch as appropriate.

Then again, its very likely they haven't considered this, and the first time they hook it up and starting running computations there is a puff of smoke and the chip is now CO2 and ash.

Re:Of course...

[eggnet]

Smaller = Less Heat
Higher frequency = More Heat
Higher voltage = More Heat

Nanometer Chip = "Is this thing on?"

Re:Of course...

[crandall]

Not so.

Smaller chips use less power, and less voltage, and tend to put out less heat. The only reason they get hotter in current chips is because they are pumped up to insane speeds.

But with these nano-chips, we are talking about many orders of magnitude smaller, so they were use many magnitudes less power, and therefor will output much less heat.

Re:Of course...

[cHiphead]

...Barbeque potatoes are pretty damn good, though...

Re:Of course...

[cronio]

Then again, its very likely they haven't considered this, and the first time they hook it up and starting running computations there is a puff of smoke and the chip is now CO2 and ash

Are you dumb? These are professionals...they've made chips before. Do you think they're going to forget about HEAT, one of the first things they think about when designing a chip?

and with a free lunch as in "free lunch", too ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is the short version of why I think this is bull: packaging.
Chips can be produced in parallel (many in 1 step per wafer), but their back end processing, and especially the packaging is a serial process. When you have a chip the size of a pinhead, you simply have to artificially make it bigger so that you can connect it to the outside world at a decent price.

Re:and with a free lunch as in "free lunch", too ?

[Samrobb]

No... instead of building a computer chip the size of a pinhead, you build a standard sized chip. Only that ship now *is* the computer - memory, 8 CPUs, ASICs, everything. It plops down into a motherboard who's sole purpose in life is to provide the wiring for the physical connections you need.

End result: a state-of-the-art, general purpose, multiprocessor computer with gigs of memory is about the size of a credit card, and cheaper than a CD. Couple it with a solid-state storage device or a microdrive, and you have a complete computer half the size of a pack of cigarettes. The only thing you're missing is IO... provided by whatever keyboard/mouse/monitor/ethernet combo device happens to be nearby.

Heck... forget about making the thing 8-way SMP. Give me 4 dual processor "machines" on one chip... - one x86, one SPARC, one 680x0 and one PPC. Who needs emulators? I'll be able to run any software I want, natively.

In related news...

[SpookComix]

Reuters, January 24, 2002
Microsoft sues HP over utilizing the prefix "Micro-" in defining their new chip technology:

"We're afraid that the customer will make the assumption that Microsoft manufacturers these chips," states company CEO Steve Ballmer, aka "Monkey Boy". "If this technology ever makes it into intrusion detection systems, they'll effectively have 'microchip windows', and that's confusingly similar to our trademarked Microsoft Windows."

The interviewer's rectum fell through his colon as he laughed.

--SC

HP buys Compaq....

[RazorJ_2000]

Now, this is the kind of research that distinguishes great companies from mediocre ones. Research and Development, innovative technologies, a vision and an eye on the future, thinking long-term..... blah blah blah.

Why the hell would you want to buy Compaq for $25 Billion, eh Carly!?! Answer that one!!

staphylococci supercomputer

[slashpunto]

I want a beuwulf cluster of these and I will name it the staphylococci supercomputer. hehe!!!

Re:staphylococci supercomputer

[SIGFPE]

If you're going to repeat a joke that's been repeated a million times before you really have absolutely no excuse to spell it wrong. Shame on you.

Re:staphylococci supercomputer

[Anonymous Coward]

Hehe, shut up before I stapholamycoccus up your ass. :)

And NanoBots + BattleBots = NanoBotBattles

[deebaine]

But we'll all need very small televisions to see them.

-db

IP propaganda (OT)

[Erris]

The new patent was key to a play to commercialize nanochips by building factories to produce them, and lab experiments had proved the concept--although they used components much bigger than the nanowires a few atoms wide.

How often do you see language like this? I understand that what he means is the new specific technique for practically applying a novel process. The language used however makes it look like patent law itself is responsible for things, rather than reseach and development. It reminds me of crap from the former Soviet Union where "sound party principles" were responsible for the great victory, bleh. I'd like to see reporters replace the word patent with something more direct and meaningful like, "research", "process", "design", even "idea". The reporter, I'm sure, was just following some stupid trend or stylebook and is unaware of the impact his words may have.

Power Supply

[Atomizer]

I heard the only drawback to these chips is they take a special Irish power supply. Here is some information as well as here.

Iconz

[Anonymous Coward]

all of slashdots icons are on images.slashdot.org

look in http://images.slashdot.org/topics/ for things like topichp.gif

...

_Mostly_ Harmless

Nano chip, but macro computers

[MoneyT]

Ok, so we have nan chips. Now what?

When are PC manufacturers gonna start looking at some of the other technologies that go into computers?

What good is a chip that fits on a pin head if your video card is still 6 inches long? And what of the motherboard and RAM? Or drives? When do they start work on a micro drive? 100 gigs in the space of a sugar cube.

I want to see more development in other parts before we advance our chips any further.

Big Step for Fiorina

[guttentag]

The biggest part of the breakthrough isn't the chips themselves, but that HP plans to be able to 'fix' chips which come out with imperfections, thus saving money on an already cheap process."

No, the biggest part of the breakthrough is that a non-printer division of HP was able to announce its accomplishment before Fiorina could shut it down .

Size matters.

[dabacon]

Here is a question for all ya smart /.ers:

If a chip is going to made out of molecular size components, will these molecular size components be reliable? More to the point, if they are not reliable and fault tolerant methods are needed to make them reliable, will they offer and advantage over our current silicon chips?

One of the reasons, it appears to me, that we have reliable classical computers is that these computers use physics to basically perform on the fly error correction. There are physical reasons why classical computers are robust. Take the flow of current through a transistor: when you are talking about a lot of electrons flowing through the components then a few stray electrons flying here or there does not affect the computation (transistion from analog to digital is robust if the analog doesn't fluctuate much). But if you are talking about a few electrons, or (gasp!) single electrons then scattering, tunnelling, etc. seem to me to make such a transitition from analog to digital much less reliable.

The lesson of Moore's law success over the last half century has been (as illuminated by Carver Mead and others) that the operation of our standard silicon based computers gets BETTER as we get smaller. However, it seems to me that there is a point in which this "getting better as we get smaller" will fall apart because the physical laws which allowed reliable components will begin to fail.

This is not to degrade the engineering feat achieved by these researchers which, I must say, is awe inspiring.

Dabacon

Re:Size matters.

[GigsVT]

Hopefully by the time we hit that point, there will be novel ways to compute without using electricity directly. For now, smaller is better because light only travels at a finite speed, about 1 foot per ns if I recall correctly, so smaller things are easier to get timed right.

Re:Size matters.

[cweber]

Size does matter, yes, but the researchers involved covered the fault tolerance issue first before going ultra-small. See the Teramac project for details.

In a nutshell, the guys at HP labs have worked with a system made up of 864 faulty chips and found ways to detect and route around defects, even while the system operates and performs actual work. They anticipated back then that techniques such as theirs would be crucial for the operation of molecular computers.

The new work with actual molecular computers, especially in their first generation, drives home the point, because no two chips can be made identical. That's in the nature of the manufactoring process. Just Brownian motion will make precise and repeatable placement of gates and wires very hard, not to mention difficulties with steering the actual chemistry of the manufactoring process. What's needed is a change in how we think about chips. They now resemble biological systems, where everything is imperfect, but manages to function most of the time.

Re:Size matters.

[dabacon]

Yes, this is exactly my point. If you need 10^3 faulty components, then why not just use something that is 10^3 larger but robust????

Dabacon

Doh!

[Pyrosz]

Damnit, I sneezed and blew my computer off the desk!

Small TV? Nah...

[itwerx]

...because they'd still be running on a couple of D-cells. :)

Cybernetic body, anyone?

[2Bits]

So, are we going to have cybernetic body soon? Electronic implant? A couple of things pop up in my mind, when I read the article:

- Tiny localizers, like those described in The Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
- Sumerian borgs, like those in Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson. This is a scary thought, actually.
- An interface to download new knowledge into my brain, like Trinity in The Matrix downloaded the chopper piloting program into her brain. Hey, I'll be the first one to implant this, if it's available.

Re:Cybernetic body, anyone?

[Gummbah]

I'd go for neural nanonics (Night's Dawn Trilogy, by Peter F. Hamilton) any day!

Re:Cybernetic body, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

An interface to download new knowledge into my brain, like Trinity in The Matrix downloaded the chopper piloting program into her brain. Hey, I'll be the first one to implant this, if it's available

There are two problems with this approach: 1) who makes the program, Microsoft? In your brain? I wouldn't trust it 2) the program would be copy-protected somehow, the implications of copyrighted brain patterns is truly terrifying to me.

Re:Cybernetic body, anyone?

[cHiphead]

one word:

SHADOWRUN

Primordial Chip Soup

[samoverton]

'no two chips that are the same. "Each one will be customized for a particular function"'

This interprets as HP are making chips configured completely randomly, and when they come off the fab., they will test them to see if they have any particular function.

"hey look this one can find prime factors"(?)

This also explains how they will "fix" imperfect chips.

"well it did for a bit but now it seems to be quoting shakespeare"

they chips aren't set in stone

[dunedan]

It looks like they're planning on "fixing" these chips after they come out.

Could they fix them again later? While there running? As in reconfigurable computing.

how about an ultrasparc that can change from 80% graphics processor to 80% FPU on the fly?

Nanotech in Scientif American...

[GdoL]

An Scientific American article sthat is valued lecture by K. Eric Drexler on "Machine-Phase Nanotechnology: A molecular nanotechnology pioneer predicts that the tiniest robots will revolutionize manufacturing and transform society".

Here you've a story that is a sample of Sci.Am. coverege:

"Purdue University physicist Albert Chang and colleagues have successfully linked two so-called quantum dots such that the tiny structures could conceivably serve as qubits-switches for quantum computers that can be on, off or in a combination of states."

Also you can see more about nanotech here

Here you can see a report on what we can learn from nature when building small.

(When I proposed a similar story...in November it was rejected, because(??) it was basead on a Scientific American)

Re:Maybe this is why they are cutting loose their

[raresilk]

HP's effort to acquire Compaq has been a front page story for weeks, if not months. What Compaq does is make PCs. So I don't see how HP is "cutting loose" from PCs.

Re:Small TV? Nah...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr Quackers 0wns battlebots :)

Smart Dust

[peter303]

Berkeley profs were working on very small computer systems that could be used as environmental or medical sensors (or weapons). They can sense, compute, and communicate.

Please......

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who does semiconductor research I have to laugh at the original post, and be disgusted with the comments. Are you people real? First, if a chip has nanometer sized features then lets not call it a micro-chip. Microchips have micron sized features. Sorry, but this whole discussion rubs me the wrong way. For that matter... The computer I am using right now has nano-chips in it (features on the order of 1000 nm). Hey, I guess that makes it a nanobot. Nevermind... I take back my disgust. This is cool stuff.

molecular computers

[cornflux]

On a similar note, ABCNEWS.com is carrying an AP report about a new HP/UCLA patent on managing information flow in molecular systems. Here's a fun quote:

"I believe that in 10 years we definitely will have hybrid molecular-silicon circuitry," Williams said. "Molecules will take over more of the computational tasks of the system and the silicon will become just the input-output device and the power supply."

Don't Worry Westly Crusher will save us...

[Anonymous Coward]

When they get loose and cause havoc, we can just get Westly to save us

Nope, for calculators

[RetardHumper]

They could go into some nifty RPN calculators or PDA

HP-UCLA past announcement

[mjbjr045]

FYI:

About 3 or 4 summers ago, the same duo, HP-UCLA, announced a nano breakthrough (forgot what) that would allow them to build a computer with the power of 10,000 workstations the size of a grain of rice, in 3 to 5 years.

Looks like they're getting closer.

Moments later...

[supabeast!]

Moments later, HP CEO Carly Fiorina announced that this technology, while superior to current current designs, is to be abandoned and sold to intel (At a loss.) during the upcoming Compaq merger.

This might be a hoax

[landtuna]

Check out the URL. It's news.com.com, meaning this isn't coming from C|Net news (news.com), but the com.com domain.

Re:This might be a hoax

[PaperTie]

I just went to http://com.com and it redirected to a CNet thing.

Re:This might be a hoax

[landtuna]

That doesn't really prove anything, though. While com.com is owned by C|Net, the interesting thing is that if you replace news.com.com in the URL with just news.com or www.news.com, it doesn't work anymore.

Re:This might be a hoax

[Anonymous Coward]

do a search for "HP" then. i got the same article when i searched

Yeah, but...

[eples]

... how many 100-Watt lightbulbs can it light up?

Damn!

[QuickFox]

Mom! Damn! I told you not to dust my room!

The Amazing MegaMod Thread led to this discussion with the editors initiated by CmdrTaco.

Time to upgrade my CPU...

[drew_92123]

Anybody got a spare electron microscope I can borrow?

;-)

Knowledge Transfer

[Anonymous Coward]

>An interface to download new knowledge into my
>brain, like Trinity in The Matrix downloaded the
>chopper piloting program into her brain. Hey,
>I'll be the first one to implant this, if it's
>available.

I can see a problem with this. Say you download physics knowledge. Any mistakes in the knowledge are put into your brain. Any misconceptions about physics are put into your brain. Anything thought to be impossible is put into your brain that it is impossible. Not many people would question the assumptions that are in their brains as knowledge. Science advance would probably slow down.

It's a truism that "When you copy something exactly, you copy all of the mistakes as well.".

I said that.

Teramac

[cweber]

This project seems to be a follow on to the original Teramac project, in which they linked 864 faulty processors together to form a functional and powerful computer. See here.

The real breakthrough then was coping with the defects of the processors and making the whole thing function reliably. It can even detect new faults and route around them (literally). The authors of the paper, chief among them Phil Kuekes, stated back then that this was fundamental technology for eventual molecular computers, which by their very nature would be made of faulty parts.

Now the molecular chips are 'real', and as anticipated, no two of these nanochips are the same. We'll have to rethink our assumptions about machines, QA and such, and take a clue from biology where everything is less than perfect, but can funtion perfectly nonetheless.

huh??

[Hooya]

...will produce no two chips that are the same. 'Each one will be customized for a particular function,' ...

i.e. "we can't seem to be able to control and replicate the production process exactly so the process is a random chain of events resulting in products that never act the same. don't worry we'll find a use for each one of these puppies that rolls off of our production line."

hum...

[guile*fr]

To all the people overheated about putting those chips on HD, keybrd, cell phone etc...

think about DRM and snooping....

I don't want one of these..

[Anonymous Coward]

..in my heart monitor. Current embedded chips
can be PROVEN to work as expected. I really doubt
that these chips can met this standard.

Actually...

[KingAdrock]

Recently someone at HP announced that if the HP/Compaq deal did not go through, HP was considering dropping their PC line all together. This is what the parent post was referring too.

There are a number of way to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a number of prgramable devices.
PGAs are arrarys of gates and you program
the interconects by blowing fuses in the chip.
You can build a fairly comlex device this way.
These are at least 10 years old now.

There are also cpomputer-on-chip devices
that include EPROM o them. Lots of options

Again?

[delta407]

Is it just me, or is this the hundredth technological breakthrough in the last year that's poised to "revolutionize the marketplace"?

The real question is, though -- how many actually do?

MOD PARENT UP!

[Anonymous Coward]

Crackhead mods post this negatively because of a non-linked goatse reference? Get off the pipe you assholes! It's not a troll! Geez, get a sense of humor you morons!

Most Obvious Problem

[pandrew]

I don't know about anyone else, but the only issue I have with nano-sized tech, is that I have a hard enough time messing with wires behind my computer in the mass they are in now, but if I needed a microscope to plug in my monitor, I would go insane!

Re:Most Obvious Problem

[eyenot]

[customer]: i'll take the x-bird four gig.

[cashier]: alriiiight. *pokes display case* okay. *pokes counter* that'll be seven eighty-five ninety-five.

[customer]: alrighty-o. *digs through wallet* can you split the tender? i have some extra cash.

[cashier]: okay. *tenders cash* alright. *tenders credit card* great. sign here.

[customer]: *signs*

[cashier]: thanks for shopping at fuqu-tron! have a nice day.

[customer]: *waiting...* great. man i love the sound of these new chips.

[cashier]: great. i hope you enjoy your purchase.

[customer]: yup. *waiting...* oh yeah could you put it in a static bag?

[cashier]: oh yeah! sure. *pokes under counter* *pokes counter* *pokes counter again* there ya go, lad.

[customer]: um... *waiting...*

[cashier]: can i help who's next?

[customer]: dude where's my fucking processor?

HP inspires new philosophy

[Marvin_OScribbley]

The new question to ponder will be...

How many Beowulf clusters can dance on the head of a pin?

(OT) Uh, about your sig...

[A nonymous Coward]

I have seen the future and it is just like the present, only longer. -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"

Shouldn't that be shorter rather than longer? It starts later than the present, and ends at the same time...

Re:(OT) Uh, about your sig...

[meadowsp]

Come on though, I can't believe there is anyone called Kellog's Allbran. A real regular guy.

Moderators don't read the stories.

[ImaLamer]

You are so far off.

There is 'nanowires'. The breakthrough is that the chips will be 'fixed' because of nano-imperfections right after the creation process.

You didn't read the article, or any others attached to this thread even.

The reason all the chips are going to be different: they designed them that way. They will be different because different applications. Unlike current CPU's, which are general use.

Please, go read the story and then post a bunch of garbage like a karma whore.

In a related story...

[thumbtack]

HP has announced that research and development is working on a "thumbnail" computer designed around their new nanochips. Among potential problems they are looking at overcoming is the design of a stylus with a point small enough to press the keys on the keyboard, which are expected to be only .001mm in size.Another issue the team will be addressing how the user can view the screen, which is rumored to be less than 1/4" across. Other issues expected present problems are the Cat 5 socket for the built in lan, and the speaker plug for the built in soundcard.

sheesh

[manual_overide]

I read all these cracks about losing your computer becuase it's small, but think about it for a minute. These would be perfect to weave into fabric... powerful wearable computers.

Or, how about medical implants? A few of these chips and a similarly small sensor array, and no one would be blind anymore. Or deaf. Your body could monitor it's own vitals and report them to a web page. No more getting poked in embarassing places by ice cold steel for just a check-up.

This could be a great thing for society. Something we'll wonder how we lived without for so long. Like in Star Trek when they go back in time and Bones can't believe people used to get kidney infections.

wut hapened

[cyberbob2010]

i remember them being bought out or something
but i thought that it would take longer than this for them to start producing things again

Obsolete

[Anonymous Coward]

*sigh* When this happens i might as well toss my engineering degree in the trash and go back to school.

HP's recent press release

[WillWare]

Here is a press release, which says in part:

Hewlett-Packard Company and UCLA today announced they have received a U.S. patent for technology that could make it possible to build very complex logic chips -- simply and inexpensively -- at the molecular scale...
[In an earlier related experiment] researchers from the collaboration crossed wires the size of those used in today's computer chips and sandwiched them around a one-molecule thick layer of electrically switchable molecules called rotaxanes. Simple logic gates were then created electronically by downloading signals to molecules trapped between the crosswires...
Once a basic grid has been assembled, programming could be used to implement a very complex logic design by electronically setting the appropriate configuration switches in the molecular-scale structure...
The problem is that on a single large grid all the electrical signals would interfere with each other... The solution proposed by the patented invention is to cut the wires into smaller lengths by turning some "intersections" into insulators... The insulators are created by "cutter wires," which are chemically distinct from the others. A voltage difference between the cutter wire and the target wire creates the insulator.

This addresses what I had seen as the major difficulty to building real circuits out of molecules -- it has gotten easy to build a large regular array of molecular switching elements all wired together in parallel, which is no more useful than a house whose lightswitches are all wired in parallel. I hadn't seen how they'd get the kind of irregular specific wiring that makes useful circuitry possible. This appears to be the answer, or close to the answer.

Heat problems, fans

[WillWare]

There is a nifty trick to reducing the heat in teeny circuits. It demands extra circuitry and is therefore not done in silicon, where extra transistors are still fairly expensive, but would probably be more feasible in this medium. The trick is called "reversible computing".

Thermodynamics says that when a computation throws away a bit of information, there is a necessary minimum heat dissipation. In today's relatively large circuitry, that dissipated heat is lost in the noise of resistive heating along the silicon conductive paths. In smaller circuits, it will become the dominant source of waste heat. An example of "throwing away a bit" is when an AND gate accepts two bits and produces only one. If you can run your logic circuit backward in time and recompute the inputs from the outputs, it's reversible.

Google has some links: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=reversible+co mputing and there is an interesting project at MIT to design an entire reversible processor, called Pendulum.

Not surprisingly, the reversible computing idea is well-liked among nanotechnology thinkers such as Ralph Merkle.

Scary Thoughts

[Snover]

Does anyone else feel like we're building humans, what with finding the "ultimate stem cell" and having computer chips broken down into different functional areas (like different organs in the body)? It sure scares the hell out of me.

The difference between micro and nanotech...

[Richard Kirk]

The story of electronics for the last 50 years has mostly been more silicon, smaller, faster, more on a chip. To the unaided eye, it might seem that this is a bit more of the same. We have a clock, a CPU, and address bus, and memory, and all of these have beend designed and stuck in the right place. It couldn't be a computer if it wasn't like that, could it?

Not so. If we go on making smaller and smaller conventional semiconductor circuits, then it gets harder to make a simple conducting wire. Tunnelling effects make your wire appear thicker then it actually is. If your conducting layer is 2-3 atoms of Al thick, then your signal may get reflected from the steps betwen regions of 2 atoms and regions of 3 atoms. If you have a III-V semiconductor, the edge of your track may be charged depending on whether the edge lies on an III or a V. And there are all sorts of quantum funnies, I haven't mentioned. Strangely enough, making something like a transistor may get easier. So, when designing at the nanoscale, everything is topsy-turvy: you have to concentrate on the wires, and forget about the devices.

At some point, we may have to abandon the idea of a clock and a bus because we cannot get them to work reliably at the nanoscale. Instead, we may have a sludge of processing components that have settled out of a solution, with a certain fraction of duff components, and working ones. Okay, there are several good years left in Si, but we must not waste them: it is going to be a massive leap to change over from designed, synchronous circuits in crystalline Si to a semirandom, aynchronous circuits in organic molecules.

Problem number one: how do you program a massively parallel asynchronous array of processors. HP's elegant answer to this one was the Teramac project (see one of the other follow-ups).

Problem number two: how do you connect these processors to real devices? Well, an ordinary chip has tiny components, but real-sized legs. Between the millimetre scale and the micron scale, there are a whole set of technologies to bridge the gap in scale, making the connections and amplifying the signals. If (when?) we go to nanotech circuits, then we are going to need a whole new tier of these connecting technologies to bridge the gap between the micro-scale and the nano-scale. Your nanoprocessor sludge will probably sit on a conventional semiconductor chip. Again, people at HP (and elsewhere) are trying to address these sorts of things. So, your future nanoprocessor thingy will probably look a lot like a conventional circuit from the outside.

I love it when a plan comes together....

Arn't patents public?

[fustflum]

I have absolutely no proper understanding of patent law, or of even what patents really mean and are used for in modern society.

That being said, arn't patents public? If HP actually got a patent on their spiffy new chip fab process and paradigm can't we just look up the patent at the patent office and look at how it works? Sure, we can't (rather, it would be illegal to) make and sell devices using this knowledge but we could read it over and do a simple sanity check. Better yet, have some brainy and experienced Ph. Ds look over it instead.

So, if this is true (which I suspect it isn't, sadly) how does one get the patent number and look up the patent papers?

-=joshua (void@(NO SPAM FETID LLAMA)mit.edu)

Re:Arn't patents public?

[WillWare]

Look here, bottom of the page.