Branched Nanotubes Offer Smaller Transistors

Designadrug writes "Tiny tubes of carbon, crafted into the shape of a Y, could revolutionize the computer industry, suggests new research. The work has shown that Y-shaped carbon nanotubes are easily made and act as remarkably efficient electronic transistors - but the nanotransistors are just a few hundred millionths of a meter in size -roughly 100 times smaller than the components used in today's microprocessors."

Comments

Moore's Law.

[Quebec]

Each time some expert's saying that Moore's Law is about to hit a barrier,
there is something going on like those promising nanotubes.

Another one for Moore against those doomsday preacher like this one:
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-5112061.html

Re:Moore's Law.

[Anm]

Actually.. the sizes mentioned in the Moore's Law barrier article you linked to roughly equate to the "a few hundred millionths of a meter in size" (2/100,000,000 meters == 20 nano-meters ~= 16 nanometers). Since the barrier is over a decade away, the two articles aren't in conflict, as much as you would like to hope.

Anm

Matters of Size and Scope

[ackthpt]

the nanotransistors are just a few hundred millionths of a meter in size -roughly 100 times smaller than the components used in today's microprocessors.

We're going to have a devil of a time soldering these things, not to mention fitting them with heatsinks...

Bandaru says the main remaining worry is how to manufacture complex nanotube-based circuitry reliably. Nonetheless, he is optimistic about the future of nanotube-based electronics.

"One must remember that for the Pentium chips which now have over 500 million transistors, the progenitor was a simple integrated circuit with two transistors in 1958," Bandaru says. "We are probably at the same stage with Y-junctions and the future looks good."

37 years? I can't wait that long! Where's the Fast Forward on these things?

Re:size vs heat in 50 years

[NoImNotNineVolt]

decreasing the size of something doesn't increase the heat it produces, no. it makes it harder for said something to dissipate the heat, as it has less surface area. you might be overlooking the part of the blurb that said "are easily made and act as remarkably efficient electronic transistors". remarkably efficient almost implies that heat issues are decreased proportionally to the size. almost. so i'd be more inclined to guess that heat decreases by a factor of 100 before i'd say it increases.

Laws of physics

[DigiShaman]

Moore's Law *will* hit the barrier. You cannot make something out matter smaller then an atom.

Next step wont be evolutionary, but revolutionary. This is when we get into quantum computing.

do more with less

[wimp_org]

Now that you mentioned SCIAM.
There is an article in the august issue of Scientific American about magnetologic gates. This mentions that instead of making transistors smaller so you can put more of them in the same space. You could also try achieve the same functions using less elements.

magnetologic gates are based on the MRAM technology. With some modifications the designs for MRAM can be used to create logic gates that are much more efficient and powerfull then CMOS based transistors.
With only 1 magnetologic gate you could create a AND, OR, NOR or NAND function. with 2 gates you can create a XOR function with would require 8 to 14 CMOS transistors. The 'full adder', the most used unit in a processor used to add two binary inputs, can be created with only 3 gates instead of 16 CMOS transistors.
So using magnetologic gates you can achieve the same kind of processing power improvement without using smaller units.

These magnetologic gates have some other advantages. They are non-volatile so they remember/store the result of the last calculation performed and reading out this value does not delete the information. This means that the overall calculation can be performed faster and it also enables parallel or clockless execution of operations.

Magnetologic gates can be reprogrammed like FPGA's. But unlike FPGA's switching between different functionalities takes just billions of a second. This ability to morph (which is the main focus of this article) radically reduces the amount of transistors needed in a processor. Since all function are hardwired in a normal CMOS processor, at any given time only a few percent of the transistors are actually used. If you could change the function of your elements with every operation, you could perform the same scala of different funtions with just a few elements.

If this technology will progress it could bypass the miniaturization efforts.

Let's Get Small Again

[Doc Ruby]

"the progenitor was a simple integrated circuit with two transistors in 1958 ... [w]e are probably at the same stage with Y-junctions"

Intel debuted the 4004, the first commodity microprocessor chip, in 1971 with 2300 transistors. That's 13 years, during which we had a space race (and Minuteman missile program) to stimulate investment. Today we have $trillions in returns on chip investment as stimulus, as well as an existing investment/manufacturing/marketing infrastructure. As well as highly useful micron-scale chips and software for design. So perhaps we're looking at a breakthrough "nanoprocessor" sometime earlier than 2028.