Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

How Small Can Computers Get? Computing in a Molecule

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the nano-pc dept.

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."

3 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. In the 1960s by Kupfernigk · · Score: 5, Interesting
    There was, as I recall, a TV programme in the UK called "Tomorrow's World" in which the presenter once prophetically ridiculed the idea of handheld computers. After all, what could you possibly use them for?

    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."
  2. Soo... by Subverted · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?

  3. What about cosmic rays ? by Alain+Williams · · Score: 4, Interesting
    A bit of radiation whizzing by would not just 'flip a bit' and make the computer/program crash (or even worse - produce an erronious result) but could dislodge a few atoms and physically damage the computer.

    So are we going to have to shield tiny computers with an inch of lead ?