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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."

13 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. well thats more just the processor... by wjh31 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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

    1. Re:well thats more just the processor... by Mozk · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Smaller transistors means more efficient transistors. It's not just about size.

      --
      No existe.
    2. Re:well thats more just the processor... by locster · · Score: 5, Insightful

      OK but what if you want to put them inside nanobots designed to target and kill cancer cells or a zillion other applications that are made possible by smaller and less power hungry computation? Smaller also means more powerful computers at the 'classic' scale, for which we know there is demand for right now by way of the very existence of supercomputers.

    3. Re:well thats more just the processor... by Hylk0r · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not only that, but it also means you can have millions of (parallel) processors on a tiny chip, which results into more performance.

  2. How small can computers get? by Finallyjoined!!! · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:How small can computers get? by Kugrian · · Score: 4, Funny

      Electronic viraga?

      "Mind passing me my phone before we start? Just need to SSH into my penis."

    2. Re:How small can computers get? by suggsjc · · Score: 3, Funny

      Lets hope not windows as I'd hate to get the BBOD (Blue Balls of Death).

      --
      When I have a kid, I want to put him in one of those strollers for twins and then run around the mall looking frantic.
  3. 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."
    1. Re:In the 1960s by Elladan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Broaden your vision. This is about making smaller components.

      What can you do with smaller components? Well, right away, you can put more stuff in the case. Your iphonanopalmtop thing can have a foldout screen and keyboard, or a bigger battery, or it can simply be lighter. I don't know about you, but I find an iPhone a bit hefty.

      Now, if you look beyond next week, smaller components let you do entirely new things. You think technology is sufficient now to put a computer in a palmtop? Whatever, dude.

      I want a computer in my eyeglasses. Optically corrected screens overlaying my vision. High resolution. And I want them to weigh the same as a normal pair of glasses. Don't forget to throw in a video camera for good measure.

      Can we build something like that now? Or course not. That sort of thing today is either a huge bulky piece of headgear, or it's moderately bulky and has a terrible display. We need better components: much smaller, much lower power, faster.

      Don't ever say we've reached the limits of useful computer technology. Until you're plugged in directly via your visual cortex and have a robot butler who brings you waffles in the morning, we haven't even reached the limits of uses we can already imagine.

  4. 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?

  5. Wow by Drakkenmensch · · Score: 4, Funny

    And you thought laptop screws were hard to find when you drop them on the living room carpet...

  6. 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 ?

  7. Content-free article by autophile · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.