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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."
I thought the ipods already had this technology!
Everything seems like it's "nanotech this" "nanotech that" these days... It seems like "nano" stuff in microchips should already be here. Marketspeak = the big let down.
-Jesse
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
Still, predictions that a nascent and unproven technology will sweep into widespread usage within a decade seems just a bit optimistic. I just hope that I'm wrong.
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?
Bradley Holt
Let me be the first to coin the term "picotechnology". I don't know anything about it except that it will be sub-molecular electronics.
Hooptie
"Heavens, it appears that my weewee has been stricken with rigor mortis!" -- Stewie Griffin
I'll believe it when I see it. These tech predictions rarely seem to happen when people think.
"Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
the 80's and 90's. Next will be "pico technology" and then after that "femto technology". Quick, trademark those names!
First dibs! It'll be the "in" thing, well, after I'm dead. Aw, shit!
The transition to new nanotechnology techniques could occur around 2015, when chip makers will have exhausted their ability to shrink the wires and switches
Shrinking the wires can ALREADY be done with carbon nanotubes. Already some of them are being used for heat dissipation in audio chips.
So, IMHO, it'll be more or less like this:
1) Carbon nanotubes will replace copper wires in CPU's, disminishing the required operational voltage and current leakage.
2) "Conventional" technologies used today (like multigate transistors) will be optimized for nanotube wires.
3) The first nanotube transistors will appear a couple of years after 2) is developed.
4) As this technology is improved, one day we'll be able to use spintronic or optical transistors.
Somewhere in the middle of these, 3D-layered chips and massively-parallel computing will be developed. Oh yes, don't forget about the system-in-a-chip.
A (redudant - read my past posts on the subject) glimpse into the future: In 20 or 30 years our computers will be smaller than a Nintendo gamecube. No floppy disks, just flash (or magnetic?) memory cards and solid-state HDs. PCI bus will be cast into oblivion, when the new add-on cards fit in a PS2 memory stick. Small future, indeed.
First, learn how to design circuits in general. It won't matter what the underlying technology is after that, you can learn to use any of them. The hard part is learning how to design them in the first place. I took a class on how to design silicon chips my senior year. Give me a new technology and it won't take me long to pick up the new features not that I understand the basics.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
... nano in my wafer. You got your wafer in my nano.
Intels goal over the next decade is to build chips that hold more than one trillion switches.
Floating point errors performed at the speed of light!
If big boobed women work at Hooters do one legged women work at IHOP?
we'll have flying cars...
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
And there was me thinking that microchips manufactured on the 65nm scale was nanotech.
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. - Mark Twain
computers were so big, we'd call them desktops.
...will be then fixed... too bad we have to wait 10 years for this.
Seeing as how short most careers in IT are most of the readers here will have have finished their career in computers by the time this happens.
threadeds blog
As it is now, I 'lose' my Thinkpad (in the couch cushions, under a coffee table book, etc.) about once a week. I'd hate to think of a system that I lose in folds of my flesh.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
Oh.... I get it, you're from the lo-tech enclave set up by our Voryonite Overlords - that small patch of land back on planet Earth where people have been kept oblivious of the arrival of our Lords and left to develop on their own, the aim being to convince even the last sceptic that the arrival of our Lords has been a Good Thing (tm).
How cute, so you've got internet now. Do you also access it through neuralites or are you still using external equipment? I'm sorry, I'm a little out of touch - I haven't watched the OldWay Feed since I was very little... anyway, must run, a Triunian Starhopper has just docked, I need to fix some of their computer systems. A starport, even a remote one like Venus V, is a great place to be when you're a nerd
See ya! And do drop by once you develop space flights, I'll get you really good deals on antimatter!
...all the techs that are in widespread use and far superior to those that were predicted in Sci-Fi. You know, like the collection you're using right now to read this.
/. is far superior to a space ship with warp drive and a hot andriod woman, but I'm not with ya on that brother ;-)
Right!!!! You might think
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
First off, there is exactly 0 reason to switch from QWERT to Dvorak. The only proof that Dvorak is faster is from..oh what was that guys name? hmm oh yeah, Dvorak.
QWERTY has nothing to do with speed, and everything to do with the letter positioning in the carriage of typewriters.
Even the alledged speed difference is pretty much moot on any modern computer, for all practical reasons.
Now, there is hugh motivation to make this technology work. When it does work it will mean faster smaller and cooler computers. That means big money to Intel, and also to AMD who will wait for intel to develop it, then steal it...then possibly make it better.
they won't convert fabs, they will build new. And spending a billionh dollarsd an a fab so you can make 100 billion is a good investment, espcially if you control the IP.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
So, now when programmers say there are "bugs" in the system, we know they mean nano-bugs; and we can all look forward to nano-viruses that will follow. Get me a can of NANO-RAID, please!
To help you out, there are three levels of circuit design you would need to learn. The first is the basics. What the NAND, NOR, OR, AND, XOR, and various flip-flops do. That was a sophmore level course in computer/electrical engineering (or CS) at my school. After that, you get into more advanced designs including designing your own microprocessors and such. That level is the most advanced you can learn without being "process specific".
The last level is the physical level. Currently, this involves laying out the parts of the transistors on circuit, all the metal, all the N and P areas (If you don't know what that means, you will when you take basic electronics courses involving transistors) and so on. With this new tech, you will have to relearn this area, but that is it.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
THANK YOU for your submission of a new
[x] nanostructure
[ ] laser
[x] transistor
using
[x] large molecules
[ ] DNA strands
[ ] silicon
This is a bad idea, because
[ ] a 3-D structure is difficult to heat-sink
[x] scientists likely never will produce a transistor this way
[x] silicon has unique properties that cannot be matched
[ ] this is a case of outright fraud
The problem however is not to make circuits
[ ] out of lasers
[ ] 3-D
[x] from anything but silicon
[ ] self ordered
But the problem is to make them
[x] reliably
[x] at low cost
[x] faster
Further this article was published in
[ ] Science
[ ] New Scientist
[x] NYT
[ ] Science News
which is primarily a publicity-seeking instrument, and not a great peer-reviewed journal of physics.
I can say this because I have a
[ ] BS
[ ] MS
[x] PhD
in
[x] Physics
[ ] Electrical Engineering
Do you understand how many dead transistors there are in a modern CPU? We already have [b]huge[b] fault tolerant abilities in microchips.
Do we, really? We have ECC and selectively disabling sections when we know they don't work, but do we have a scheme where one faulty transistor in the core itself will never affect operation? (Compare to how ECC might promise you no data loss desptie a n-bit error within a word.)
Bill's weapon was originally micro and soft. In his old age he has been downgraded to nano and it is no longer possible to measure for any degree of stiffness.
Mork says Bill's got a "nano nano"
Bill says "I am trying to reach pico status"
W1nd0z3 1s fa d0rks