Nanotech in Microchips by 2015

dotwhynot writes "Molecular electronics, a realm once considered science fiction, could be heading for our computers and devices sooner than thought. A new report on the technology roadmap of the chip industry finds a growing confidence in new nanotechnology, and forecasts that the transition to the post-silicon era could happen by 2015. The development of nanoswitches has already reached a point where it will be possible to manufacture them reliably at low cost. Intels goal over the next decade is to build chips that hold more than one trillion switches."

Comments

Heat

[mysqlrocks]

The transition to new nanotechnology techniques could occur around 2015, when chip makers will have exhausted their ability to shrink the wires and switches that make up the modern processors and memory storage devices at the heart of the computer, communications and consumer electronics industries.

Nevermind the growing heat concern. Who was it that said soon microchips will be hotter than the surface of the sun if they keep getting faster at the same rate they are now?

Re:Heat

[$RANDOMLUSER]

> Who was it that said soon microchips will be hotter than the surface of the sun if they keep getting faster at the same rate they are now?

1) James Clerk Maxwell
2) Max Plank
3) Gordon Moore
4) All of the above ;-)

Re:Heat

[Ironsides]

Nevermind the growing heat concern. Who was it that said soon microchips will be hotter than the surface of the sun if they keep getting faster at the same rate they are now?

That's assuming that power consumption continues to increase inside the silicon chip. With these switches, using different materials all together, power consumption is supposed to be greatly reduced. What you're doing is similar to comparing a statement made about vacum tubes to transistors.

"Nanotech in Microchips by 2015"

[gregski]

And there was me thinking that microchips manufactured on the 65nm scale was nanotech.