Researchers Create 4nm Transistor With Seven Atoms

EmagGeek writes "University researchers have created a transistor by replacing just seven atoms of silicon with phosphorous. The seven-atom transistor has hopeful implications for the future of quantum cryptography, nuclear and weather modeling, and other applications. 'The significance of this achievement is that we are not just moving atoms around or looking at them through a microscope,' says Professor Michelle Simmons, a co-author of a paper on the subject that is being published by Nature Nanotechnology. The paper is entitled 'Spectroscopy of Few-Electron Single-Crystal Silicon Quantum Dots'."

Comments

7 Atoms?

[Anonymous Coward]

Should've used a VIA C7 instead.

Not Holding My Breath

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds like they did this by moving single atoms at a time, and not through any kind of lithography, or mass-producible process. So while neat, like the single atom transistor story from a while back, it doesn't look like they really have a way to produce billions of these at a time. We may have to wait a long time before we see anything like this in our home PCs.

Re:Not Holding My Breath

[$RANDOMLUSER]

You probably don't need a quantum computer to wait on I/O in your home PC.

Re:Not Holding My Breath

[dpilot]

It'll take a really wicked manufacturing process to ever make, too. 7 atoms? What if you get only 6? What if you get 8? What if one is slightly off position? We've already been at sub-100nM processes for years now, and things are already too "grainy" for real comfort.

Oh yeah, what's the difference between "on" current and "off" current?

Re:Not Holding My Breath

[wiredlogic]

Even if you could mass produce this structure it will always be impractical because natural diffusion processes will cause the atoms to migrate out of position.

Re:Not Holding My Breath

[Thanshin]

It'll take a really wicked manufacturing process to ever make, too. 7 atoms? What if you get only 6? What if you get 8? What if one is slightly off position?

Building a car with 4 wheels? What if you only get 3? What if you get 5? What if one is slightly off position?

An automated process doesn't care about size. What they did, can be replicated. Thus, it can be automated, unless there's a creative process involved that implies the use of a human mind, which I strongly doubt.

If the automation is too slow, it can be multiplied. If multiplying is still not enough, the process itself of creating and assembling multiple automatons can be multiplied.

Price vs usefulness of the final product may well be a problem, but size isn't. It was until it was solved, which is precisely the point of the news.

Re:Not Holding My Breath

[tom17]

and 640K should be enough for anyone too, right?

Re:Not Holding My Breath

[Anonymous Coward]

You probably don't need a quantum computer to wait on I/O in your home PC.

You also probably don't need more than 640K.

Re:Not Holding My Breath

[Thanshin]

In macroscopic terms the world is simple. The finer the resolution the more complex the world gets. In nanoscopic terms the world is complicated.

Making chips is considerably harder than making bricks; and yet we do make both.

Our current technology allows us to automate macroscopic processes with high precision. Nanotechnology however is one leading edge technology, and as such the precision certainly isn't there to make a fair comparison to automated macroscopic processes.

Making chips was once leading edge technology, not comparable to making bricks; and yet we made both.

Think of a doctor performing surgery: a large benign tumor in section of fat could be easily removed, while a miniscule brain tumor would probably be one of the most difficult to remove.

Removing a minuscule brain tumor is much harder than amputating a leg; and yet we do both.

That's precisely the point of science and technology. Some guy spends years doing something that was previously impossible. Some other guys try little variants on the same action. And then a guy develops a process of doing the exact same thing but better, faster and cheaper.

Once the action passes through the imposibility barrier, the steps from "breakthough" to "mundane" are well known. We've spent several thousand years walking those steps on each new discovery.

Re:Not Holding My Breath

[Bakkster]

"Off" is almost never zero current. There's usually just a tiny amount of 'leakage' current, although some quantum designs (such as this one seems to be) can have exactly no current while off.

Basically, while all our computers and data are binary, they operate in an analog environment. We just treat any value greater than (for example) analog 0.8 as a digital 1, and anything less than analog 0.2 as a digital 0. The problem has been as we shrink the gate size and thickness and reduce supply voltage in order to get faster, we also increase this leakage current.

One of the things keeping us from getting smaller faster is that without handling this well, we could have the issue where the 'off' current was more than 50% of the 'on' current, sometimes significantly more. It's still technically a transistor, but it's not practical if you're trying to determine between 8uA for 'on' and 7uA for 'off'. What GP is asking is whether this is a practical transistor (the output currents are different enough that it could be used to toggle the gate of another equivalent transistor), or just a theoretical 'acts like a transistor, but has no use'.

Read this for a bit more info.

Re:Not Holding My Breath

[ground.zero.612]

In macroscopic terms the world is simple. The finer the resolution the more complex the world gets. In nanoscopic terms the world is complicated.

Making chips is considerably harder than making bricks; and yet we do make both.

Our current technology allows us to automate macroscopic processes with high precision. Nanotechnology however is one leading edge technology, and as such the precision certainly isn't there to make a fair comparison to automated macroscopic processes.

Making chips was once leading edge technology, not comparable to making bricks; and yet we made both.

Think of a doctor performing surgery: a large benign tumor in section of fat could be easily removed, while a miniscule brain tumor would probably be one of the most difficult to remove.

Removing a minuscule brain tumor is much harder than amputating a leg; and yet we do both.

That's precisely the point of science and technology. Some guy spends years doing something that was previously impossible. Some other guys try little variants on the same action. And then a guy develops a process of doing the exact same thing but better, faster and cheaper.

Once the action passes through the imposibility barrier, the steps from "breakthough" to "mundane" are well known. We've spent several thousand years walking those steps on each new discovery.

So then, just so I'm clear, leg amputation is just as difficult as brain surgery; bricks are just as hard to make as silicon wafers.

Thanks for clearing all that up. Now that you've enlightened me on now the world works I will fly home after work this evening using nothing but my arms. Because I can walk with my legs.

Re:Not Holding My Breath

[tool462]

You've got the theory basically correct, but in the real world the "off" current is just less current, not zero current. To get a good signal to noise ratio, you want Ion / Ioff to be as big as possible. In older processes (or thick oxide devices) you can get really good ratios. You could have an Ion of 10mA and an Ioff of 10nA, for example, for a ratio of 1e6. For newer process nodes on thin oxide devices, that ratio may get as low as 1e3 or worse. In that range, the device still works well for digital circuitry, but speed comes at the expense of very high leakage power. As that ratio gets even lower, you end up with a device that isn't suitable for digital circuitry--you can't tell the difference between an on and an off device reliably.

Re:Not Holding My Breath

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't insightful. The analogy drawn is invalid on many levels.

The argument isn't that a quantum computer isn't necessary. It's pointing out the fact that computing is often I/O limited - how fast a computer can move data around to be processed. He's saying that advances need to come in other areas before things like this are significant.

And, as someone with a background in these things - you don't make a good transistor with 7 phosphorus atoms. There has to be more to it. The fact that they created a transistor on the order of several atoms isn't exciting either, IBM worked out how to move around atom by atom a long time ago. With the right equipment, this has always been theoretically possible, but practically, retarded.

Re:Not Holding My Breath

[bain itic]

Even in a crystaline structure? Forgive me, IANAMS.

Yes, even in a crystalline structure. Diffusion in solids at the macroscopic scale seems slow compared to say, cream in your coffee, but at the atomic scale... They did this at the surface, which makes it even worse. I can't imagine this lasting any useful amount of time without some SEVERE cooling measures. I'm not sure if even liquid nitrogen could save it. IAAMS.

New hardware error?

[Errol backfiring]

Just wait until you get an error message that says:

* * * ATOM NOT PRESENT ERROR * * *

Re:New hardware error?

[Yvan256]

Better than the Wolfcastle error:
At them not present error.

Re:New hardware error?

[roman_mir]

Atom decay detected, insert proton. (Insert, Abort, Cancel)

Re:New hardware error?

[jo_ham]

"Are you sure you want to insert a proton?"

(Positive, Cancel)

Re:New hardware error?

[binarylarry]

* ATOMIC ERROR: ATOM IS EITHER PRESENT OR NOT PRESENT (I CAN'T TELL, CAN YOU LOOK)

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Re:New hardware error?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

"PC LOAD PHOSPHORUS"?

What the fuck does that mean?

Eat my transistor

[flahwho]

I once created a transistor with seven raisins. It didn't last long and I think Kelloggs stole the patent!

--I forgot my sig.

Interesting

[daveime]

I thought that phosphorus was one of those elements that is never present in atomic form, it's so reactive it immediately oxidizes to form phosphorus compounds.

Does this mean the 7 atom transistor has to remain in a vacuum ?

Re:Interesting

[irreverant]

We move forward while we move back, if it needs to be in a vacuum then it would use a vacuum tube, while it's good for music it's bad for computers since we moved forward from these to transistors. I'm thoroughly confused now.

Re:Interesting

[jo_ham]

You can just keep it in an inert atmosphere or cover it in an inert insulator.

You can store phosphorus under oil relatively easily. No need for a vacuum per se.

Re:By This Logic...

[soilheart]

This is not the article you are looking for.

Applications

[dohzer]

The seven-atom transistor has very hopeful implications for the future of quantum cryptography, nuclear and weather modeling, and other applications.

Why not just say that it will lead to faster computers?

Re:Amazing what we get for news these days.

[N0Man74]

The present?

Re:Gonna be tough to solder!

[Linker3000]

One atom has a tab

Re:6 Atom transistor

[LHorstman]

Would someone tell me how this happened? We were the fucking vanguard of quantum transistors in this country. The University of New South Wales' Centre for Quantum Computer Technology (CQCT) Mach7 was the quantum transistor to own. Then the other guy came out with a seven-atom transistor. Were we scared? Hell, no. Because we hit back with a little thing called the Mach7Turbo. That's seven atoms and an aloe strip. For moisture. But you know what happened next? Shut up, I'm telling you what happened--the bastards went to six atoms. Now we're standing around with our cocks in our hands, selling seven atoms and a strip. Moisture or no, suddenly we're the chumps. Well, fuck it. We're doing 5 atoms!

Re:Something to think about

[Bakkster]

Doping really isn't relevent here, since we're not talking CMOS or FET transistors. While it's still a transistor operationally, the structure is completely different, so there is no p- or n-type material, per-se.

What this is, is a quantum dot which acts as a single electron transistor. It's as different from a CMOS transistor as CMOS is from a vaccuum tube. So, asking for a doping ratio of a quantum dot transistor is like asking for the grid spacing of a CMOS, or the oxide thickness of a JFET: it doesn't exist.