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Cascading Molecules Drive IBM's Smallest Computer
Benoit Fries writes "EE Times reports that IBM researchers have created a simple computation engine that's more than 250,000 times smaller than the most advanced silicon circuitry. Called the world's smallest computer, the system relies on a 'molecular cascade' that pushes a handful of carbon monoxide molecules across a copper surface to perform digital logic functions. 'Even if CMOS density follows Moore's Law for 40 more years, molecular cascades are still going to be smaller,' they said."
'Even if CMOS density follows Moore's Law for 40 more years, molecular cascades are still going to be smaller'
Pfft - if I had a nickel for every time I heard that...
Image a beowulf cluster of those.
Counter Strike for mice.
Carbon monoxide? Carcinogenic hard drives! I was worried about my computer being too safe.
Have you been stalked by Seth today?
So if the power goes out, half the city asphixiates, right? :-)
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*LoC == Standard metric unit of information (Library of Congress). Size of unit varies from year to year.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
Nooo!!! You're stepping on them!!!
It's not the size that counts, it's how you use it!
That was so unexpected.....yeah, right.
--
http://nemilar.net - Not your grandmother's soup kitchen
The first person who makes a Star Trek joke about Cascading Failure gets shot.
250,000 times smaller than the most advanced silicon circuitry. Of course, it's also 250,000,000 times slower. I'm guessing there won't be molecular cascade chips in my PC anytime soon, unless I have a lot of free time...
Because it is not radioactive.
LOS ANGELES 6:39PM PST - The American Assocation of Midgets issued a press release stating "finally a computer company is aligned with our cause. We, the worlds smallest people have been waiting for decades for the worlds smallest computer."
Tiny computers were there first, and I believe they even have a patent for the worlds smallest computers. Pictures of the products on their web site are actual size.
What if we're all part of some gigantic computer and the molecules we put to work computing were already computing something ?
Is God going to sue us for stealing processing power ?
graspee
...it still wouldn't be large enough to connect a network cable.
Yes but it would make me feel important. God how I loved room fulls of racks with lights and tapes and switches. I could stroll through my domain and feel like a king.
Now I have a tiny cube with a PC connected by ethernet to a tiny server no bigger than a chopping cart. AND we still don't get any more done than we did back in the day.
Wasn't that what caused all the aliens to pop up in 'Half-Life'?
RMN
~~~
yeah we do now we get quake on machines instead of nethack
No they said "so what if it costs $1m you get the source to the OS"
... is that AMD chips run on smoke, and IBM chips run on Carbon Monoxide.
From the article:
The most complex circuit they built is so small that 190 billion could fit atop a standard pencil-top eraser 7mm in diameter.
In my days, when you wanted to show something was really small, you counted how many you could fit on the end of a pin, or in the width of a human hair. Comparing it with something that's almost 1 cm across is cheating.
RMN
~~~
For Americans who are unfamiliar with international units such as an Azerbaijan, it slightly smaller than Maine.
The CIA website provides a convient and fairly comprehensive translation table between US units and international units.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Dude, you've got to get out more. :)
AND we still don't get any more done than we did back in the day.
yeah, but that's only becuase as the power and availibility of computing technology has improved over the years, the power and availability of video game technology has improved at exactly the same rate
Aw, I was almost getting excited as I read the article. This technology appears to be a long way from being a post-silicon circuit alternative for CPUs.
I dunno, seeing as it was just a few scant years ago that the people working on this technology were using it to build an abacus, they seem to be moving at a pretty fast clip to me.
I mean, going from Abacus to an "exceedingly slow" turing-complete device the first time around took us, what, 3000 years?
So if they keep going at their current rate of progress, they should have little molecular hardware companies running around on their desktops and unethically building little molecular speed tricks into their little molecular video cards so that they can trick a little molecular version of Quake 3 into appearing to give better benchmarks.. by, like, i don't know, monday. Hell, their Little Molecular Computation department will have probably gotten around to inventing the concept of molecular-scale Vaporware by the time i write these words.
- Simultaneous Multiprocessing, a technology said to allow several hundred instructions to execute through the same physical wires and gates simultaneously. This allows Intel to reduce the transistor count from 948,089,112,552 transistors, as in the Pentium 6, to 14 transistors. (Plans for the next revision include dropping one of the remaining 14 transistors for cost effectiveness.)
- Temporal Result Ordering, which uses a built-in fluxcapacitor to efficiently move instructions and data backwards and forwards in time. This allows the processor to execute code during idle cycles and deliver the results to processes that have already finished executing, or will begin executing at some future time. This provides an incredible boost in speed and efficiency because:
- The processor can use the result of a computation before the computation itself is executed, and even before the program that contains the computation is loaded into memory.
- Computations whose results will be used at some future time can be performed early, before the user even decides to run the program.
- SpiritRun Technology, an extension of Temporal Result Ordering, which allows the processor to execute program code by its spirit, rather than its letter. As all programs contain bugs, or programmer errors which lead to undesired program behavior and crashes, this technology will save businesses over $80 billion dollars per year in lost data, staff time and resources. SpiritRun uses Temporal Result Ordering to detect crashes before they occur (again, during idle cycles taking place in the past, present or future) and analyses the program in its entirety to determine the cause of the undesired operation. At this time, the processor automatically corrects the program code to provide the desired operation. This technology also makes all code 100% secure because the processor detects crackers before they're even born and automatically modifies the holes that allowed them access in the first place.
- Built-in Photorealism Processing Unit, which generates photorealistic graphics by allocating a parallel universe which physically contains a perfect replica of the object being rendered and a photographer. The photographer takes a perfect photograph of the subject and it is digitally transmitted via the Interverse to the processor. Because the parallel universe has a timeline of its own, completely separated from our perception of time, this information appears to arrive immediately, even though the photography may take several hours in the parallel universe.
- Built-in Orchestra Sound Unit, which generates sounds for audio applications which rivals that of the greatest orchestras in the world. This works similarly to the Photorealism Processing Unit, except that a parallel universe is created which contains an orchestra. The sound is recorded and transmitted, again, appearing to arrive immediately, even though the orchestra may have practiced the piece for years in the parallel universe.
As you can clearly see, AMD has a lot of catching up to do.I agree. Computers haven't been the same since they got rid of the blinking lights. I can live without the reels of tape, but without the blinking lights, how can I tell that anything is happening?
lizzardo
It's an interesting project, but that's a long way to go....
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
Yes but it would make me feel important. God how I loved room fulls of racks with lights and tapes and switches. I could stroll through my domain and feel like a king.
Now I have a tiny cube with a PC connected by ethernet to a tiny server no bigger than a chopping cart. AND we still don't get any more done than we did back in the day.
He has a point.
An excercise: Make a graph of average computer size versus average computer nerd's salary. Notice that they both spiral ever-downwards? Maybe the problem is that, as computers get small, the Boss thinks they're simple and won't pay people as much to fix them. Maybe if computers got really huge again, we could scare our employers with some crazy Scotty-talk and demand more money for maintaining the beasts.
Hey, it could happen...
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,