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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."
> 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.
The problem is synchronization of the electronics. When you reach a certain speed the speed of electron flow comes into play. Likewise the shape of the ramp than denotes the hi / low states becomes an issue. When you 'scope what you believe to be a square wave you'll see that the edge is not the 90 degree edge one tends to think these waveforms are.
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.
So how would transistors and gates the size of atoms help, in any way, to fit a computer onto a penny? Are we actually talking about the article here or are we talking about some imaginary full computer that is the size of a penny and has nothing to do with the article? We already have full computers: memory, BIOS, clock, and RAM that are the size of a penny (power supply is a long way off, though), they may not run Windows, but I mean you can go buy a microcontroller that has all of those basic functions for $99. The point of smaller gates is not to "make the computer smaller," but to put more gates in the same amount of space, thereby giving you more processing power for the same amount of energy, money and fabrication efficiency (the bigger the die, the less efficient the fab process is due to defects, though I guess with atoms and molecules traditional fab theory goes out the window.)