NASA Wires Chips With Nanotubes

carstene writes "SpaceDaily reports that NASA has come up with a way to wire microchips with nanotubes instead of copper interconnects. Aparently this could keep Moore's law a reality well into the next decade."

Comments

NASA vs. Intel

[traskjd]

Just wondering - but how much would NASA have spent to find this out? I mean It's common to see companies like IBM come up with stuff that is cool like this (like the copper idea a few years back). It seems to me that Intel doesn't actually come up with too many new ideas? (I mean sure there chips become faster but not amazing new things).

I could be wrong. Has Intel done anything this cool? Surely they would spend more money on R&D for processors (I would assume NASA spends more on Space?)

any info about this would be much appreciated.

Re:NASA vs. Intel

[Slowping]

Intel has always held a very conservative line regarding research into far-out new technologies. The vast majority of Intel's research money goes into fab/mount/production technologies.

For stuff like nano-tubes and quantum computing, Intel usually helps fund academia to let them take the high-risk endeavors. And then take the benefits as they are produced.

I'm not sure what Intel's current plan is now, but it seems that they're putting more R&D dollars into the mobile/ubiquitous computing market, to try and branch out their chip options, instead of being forever racing against Moore's Law.

Intel-research.net, for some info on Intel and partnerships with academia on this type of research.

Re:royalties

[bcwalrus]

Can they patent something created using your tax dollars?

"only benefit the "Power User" community"

[da5idnetlimit.com]

Ahem...

People saying "unless you are a gamer home computers are more than fast enough now for what we want (internet/email/minor word processing) " are forgetting that ...

1 - Starting Word 2024 will require 1.5 TeraFlops because every key you strike will require the calculation of two 8192 bytes key and the exchange of 1024 security tokens / sec, and we have to get ready to cope with that

2 - My old and faithfull Dual PIII 1Ghz, that was once considered the fastest rig on my block is now just a piece of interesting junk that still allows me to play Quake and encode divxs at the same time, and LOTS of you just dream about doing it for real

3 - it's not because i'm not a basic luser that immediatly jump categories and becomes a Power User. And if you think a softcore gamer or a hardcore Quaker is a "Power User", you never saw a real 16 CPU machine being "stability tested" for a round or ten of Quake @1024 fps, or the fastest Divx encode ever (11 minutes 8p)...

4 - "internet/email/minor word processing" can be achieved since 486 DX2 66 with no problem and little fuss... I mean my mail Server/Firewall/Ftp/ Webserver/PDC is a Pentium 133 and it serves the need of 10 ppl...So stop complaining when we allow you the use of a 2 Ghz computer just so you can play Freecell @ 25 fps 8p

Would be BOFH, hoping for Admin job...

Re:NanoTubes...

[Compuser]

Well, it seems they are using multi-wall nanotubes
with rather large number of shells. Then you can
pass enough current to blow out all semiconducting
shells and get a metallic conductor. I don't
know if they use this trick but that's what IBM
people have done a while back.
The real trick is positioning these nanotubes
and contacting them. I wonder what they do to
assure good electrical contact. Typically your
contacts will be the first to blow out and the
thing to limit electronic mobility. Plus
encasing the nanotubes in silica sounds like a
bad idea because these suckers are really
sensitive to external perturbations and may not
conduct as well under external stress.