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How Small Can Computers Get? Computing in a Molecule
ScienceDaily on what the future might bring for atomic-scale computing: "Joachim, the head of the CEMES Nanoscience and Picotechnology Group (GNS), is currently coordinating a team of researchers from 15 academic and industrial research institutes in Europe whose groundbreaking work on developing a molecular replacement for transistors has brought the vision of atomic-scale computing a step closer to reality. Their efforts, a continuation of work that began in the 1990s, are today being funded by the European Union in the Pico-Inside project. ... The team has managed to design a simple logic gate with 30 atoms that perform the same task as 14 transistors, while also exploring the architecture, technology, and chemistry needed to achieve computing inside a single molecule and to interconnect molecules."
rather than the whole computer, i see no reason why consumer computers need ever get any smaller than a phone if you want it portable, or small enough to be fitted to the back of a screen for desktops
How about some actual data? This article is extremely watered-down ("1/100 of a nanometre (that is one hundred millionth of a millimetre!)") and essentially has nothing beside speculation about what these transistors can be used for. They don't even say what element the atoms are for fuck's sake. It's pretty amazing that they made the equivalent of 14 transistors with 30 atoms, but the article makes it sound like they just pushed some atoms together under a microscope.
No existe.
Is the wrong question I think. The size of the "computer" is really dictated by the interface. It would be great to have a computer the size of a halfpenny, but how would you access it?
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
"Of course it runs NetBSD"
Really the question is how small becomes impractical? I remember the calculator cold wars. It hit the limit when everyone realized how silly a pen one was when you couldn't read the display or use it without a tiny stylus. Eventually the cost of reducing the size will be astronomical so even if you can what's the point? We can make antimatter fuel it's just so insanely expensive that without a major technical leap you aren't going to be powering a car much less a starship with it. There may be uses justifying continuing to reduce computer size but already they are about as fast as people need for most apps so the biggest benefits would be power useage and cramming more computers into places they don't belong. Expensive doesn't make for good disposables so it'll have limitations. It's exciting stuff but don't hold your breath on having a super computer the size of a pin head. Can it be done? Yes. Will it be practical? Unlikely.
The real key to all of these and all non-trivial efforts at Nano technology is for these devices to be self assembling. By non-trivial I mean other than "simple" things like nanotubes or quantum dots. These simple compounds can now be produced in industrial quantities through basically chemical/physical means.
While it is very very impressive that they can do this, in order for this to become practical, they will have to make millions, no billions, no trillions, no quadrillions... of these things at once or they have to be able to duplicate/reproduce themselves. The (self) "assembler" is, of course, the holy grail of nano-tech.
Hope I see it before I die and that it doesn't cause my (and all of our) deaths! :P
Combine this kind of idea with recent research on PNA (a more robust molecule than DNA which shares many of the properties) and the long term prospects could be very interesting - self-assembling memory, for instance.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
An uncle of mine works as a deputy mayor for the local government here, and was quite pleased to find out that everybody, including him, that worked in the council would be given a free new laptop. Naturally, he imagined that it would be smaller and faster - alas, now his job is far harder as he has to lug around a big heavy slow piece of shite.
Meanwhile, atomic-scale computing is created, and at this stage its hard to say whether this is a step or a giant leap in the right direction.
This post was made in complete sincere seriousity; as such any attempts to derive humour are doomed to instant failure.
30 atoms doing the work of 14 transistors... Does this mean that the amount of transistors(logic gates) able to be fit on a chip is now more than exponentially larger? Of course, depending on how easy this would be to adapt to commercial production(and get them talking to eachother) might it be the plateau that Moore's law predicts?
I prefer to think in Nanotransistors->far more powerful not-nanoscale computers, at least in mid-term. Molecule sized memory, in example could be a big hit in all areas if an efficient cheap way of production is reached (genetic engineered cows that gives milk of memory? bacterias?).
But about complete computers, well, still dont know if all components could be stick together in a single molecule, or that it retains all the components functionality in that way.
Dude, of course they will prefer the expensive one.
Am I eval()? - http://www.monst3r.com.br
big and floppy or small and 0y
There, fixed that for you.
This post was made in complete sincere seriousity; as such any attempts to derive humour are doomed to instant failure.
If they can make computers that small, maybe they can make a billion-core processor smaller then our brains and more powerful?
Sometimes I misplace my laptop. How will if find my tiny computer
in the future? Will I wash it by mistake? Can it take the dry cycle?
Grrrrr.
And you thought laptop screws were hard to find when you drop them on the living room carpet...
Software nerds will find a way to bring quadrillions of picotransistors to a crawl by making everything so abstract, so complex, so unnecessarily cryptic that it will require 25 quabillion clock cycles to process a single keystroke, and people will still think they need faster hardware.
But what will you do for I/O, then?
PicoTech?
Or is Nano the smallest?
I'm not entirely sure of the interactions at the pico- scale to comment on the possibility.
So are we going to have to shield tiny computers with an inch of lead ?
If the atoms get hit by some radiation the molecule should either break or (if hit whilst calculating) return a wrong value. So basically you'll have to cover your computer with 8 cm of lead, which istn't exactly in EU health standards.
"This sentence is false" - sending a computer to hell
> is now more than exponentially larger?
It's impossible to tell if it's scaling linearly or exponentially or whatever from just one data point; however, unless the atoms are working in a totally different computing paradigm (like quantum computing), it's unlikely to be more than just a linear factor of improvement.
A simple logic gate as mentioned in the summary would be AND, OR, XOR, NAND, NOR, XNOR, INVERTER. The positive logic gates (AND, OR, not sure about XOR) take 4 transistors to implement, while the negative logic gates take 2 to implement. The INVERTEr also takes two transistors to implement. How can 30 atoms replace 14 transistors to create a "simple logic gate" ? To me, it doesn't get simpler than the logic gates mentioned above.
Now, see, this is the thing that always worries me about the ever-shrinking computers that come out each year: damage.
You drop a computer, you're screwed.
That is how weak computers are these days.
What will it take to break one of these things? Breathing on them? God forbid you sneeze on the poor bugger.
We need computers that can self-repair first.
But a computer that could self-repair would be against business norms, building a "perfect" device invites lost profits because nobody would need to buy things again.
I guess there could be a kill-switch in them, or a limited amount of material they could use to fix.
Or redundancy, say for example, slightly more RAM than you are told about, but it is used in case other RAM dies. None of the RAM will be repaired, just rerouted to the extra RAM.
Damn monies.
... that are facing computing. CPU speed is far out-stripping storage and memory bandwidth. More efficient transistors = nice, but LESS robust to defects = bad. I have to wonder how fragile these atom transistors will be. I'm wondering if we're approaching a point where having too few atoms leads to much higher failure rate.
I can't be the only one thinking about how expensive this is going to be.
... ought to be enough for anybody...
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these! And a beowulf cluster of those clusters! Why, I could fit them on a matchstick head, call it W. Bush's brain!
You can't handle the truth.
There are these things called radio waves. They're used to transmit and receive data without the need for wires. You should try 'em, I've heard they're all the rage! I've even heard they can make the receivers/transmitters really small. Personally, I'm pretty sure this a just a fad.
STOP
I'll stick with my telegraph, thank you very much.
STOP
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
I much prefer to read Eric Drexler's PhD thesis, Molecular Machinery and Manufacturing with Applications to Computing. Chapter 11 (nanomechanical computational systems) is particularly interesting.
Towards the Singularity.
Its the size of its two controls, a clip, and phone jack. Fortunately a battery, flsah memory, and basc computer fits inside the same form factor.
Smart dust was supposed to be computers the size of glitter (square millimeter). Each would have a CPU, power access, and communications. These would be used for survellience and environmental monitoring. I recall labs simulating these with "domino-size" computers which can be constructed off the shelf.
You'd still need a USB port, last I looked even a micro-B receptacle wouldn't fit in my ha'penny....:-)
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
Um hello, did we not learn our lesson with the replicators?
The Stargate writers would be turning over in their graves if they heard this.... and if they were dead of course.
AC~
i'll just settle for getting the flying cars they've been promising for the last 50 years. or just a direct brain interface to a standard PC/mac and a few applications that can take advantage of it.
imagination's nice and all, but frequently allows the marketing droids to lead us around by the nose.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
And 640K of memory is enough for anyone...
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
man i wish i had mod points today
this is why you don't ignore anonymous cowards
ÐÑо ÐÐÐÐÐÑ! ---------- An optimist stays up to see the New Year in. A pessimist waits to make sure the old one leaves.
How about for that extra special present, where money is no problem, an upper garment for a sportswoman with multiple processor/sensor/activator nodes on each fibre, to control the tension to cope with the local forces in the material, as she is hitting a tennis ball with her racket and her upper body is rotating.
The woman would feel more comfortable and look more elegant.
Of course, the porosity of the material will be controlled to allow optimum air transfer and heat dissipation, so thermal balance will be far better than today's clothes.
For health monitoring, some nodes will be reporting to a main node on the garment that will communicate with her designated sports professional health system.
Naturally all nodes will have their own unique IPv6 address.
With molecular size components, the above scenario is but a few years away - 20 years at the outside for common commercial availability for the up market buyer...