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Ohm's Law Survives To the Atomic Level
Hugh Pickens writes "Moore's Law, the cornerstone of the semiconductor industry, may get a reprieve from its predicted demise. As wires shrink to just nanometers in diameter, their resistivity tends to grow exponentially, curbing their usefulness as current carriers. But now a team of researchers has shown that it is possible to fabricate low-resistivity nanowires at the smallest scales imaginable by stringing together individual atoms in silicon as small as four atoms (about 1.5 nanometers) wide and a single atom tall. The secret is to introduce phosphorus along that line because each phosphorus atom donates an electron to the silicon crystal, which promotes electrical conduction. They then encase the nanowires entirely in silicon, which makes the conduction electrons more immune to outside influence. By embedding phosphorus atoms within a silicon crystal with an average spacing of less than 1 nanometer, the team achieved a diameter-independent resistivity, which demonstrates ohmic scaling to the atomic limit. 'That moves the wires away from the surfaces and away from other interfaces,' says physicist says Michelle Simmons. 'That allows the electron to stay conducting and not get caught up in other interfaces.' The wires have the carrying capacity of copper, indicating that the technique might help microchips continue their steady shrinkage over time and may even extend the life of Moore's Law. 'Fundamentally, we have shown that we can maintain low resistivities in doped silicon wires down to the atomic scale,' says Simmons, adding that it may not be ready for production now, but, 'who knows 20 years from now?'"
If the atomic resistance gather together at ohm's law, will they occupy it?
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
They're different laws about different things, they just happen to relate in this instance.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
At what point will we stop hearing about it?
When you stop reading a site dedicated to geeks, computer professionals and computer enthusiasts.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Of course it's valid. It's a law! Not some phony-baloney "theory" like evolution or gravity.
Hate to have to solder one :-)
--an unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys--
TFA says that the wires were deposited lithographically (the technique currently used to make chips) and then the phosphorus was deposited. So this, in theory, could be done cheaply.
However, TFA also mentions low temperature. It doesn't measure exactly what temperature, but processors are not usually operated at low temperatures. If this is a "liquid nitrogen cold" temperature, then this could very well be useless on a grand scale. But if the effect survives to room temperature (or higher), then this could have a huge impact.
Just a first order approximation would show that these wires are about 5 times smaller than the current 22nm state-of-the-art. In two dimensions, that means roughly a 2500% increase in density, enough to keep Moore's law alive and well for some time to come.
Great warrior...hrmph! Wars not make one great.
The resistance of interconnects grows polynomially, not exponentially, as they decrease in size.
It's an important difference. As sizes get small enough, we start to see stochastic effects, but we're not there yet.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
Likely because I just quit smoking and are somewhat grumpy, but I am tired of hearing about Moore's Law. Maybe those in the semiconductor industry care about it, but I, and those I work with certainly don't. At what point will we stop hearing about it? /rant
(Thank you for your patience. Now where are the damn pretzels?)
The most important part of Moore's Law was it essentially saying that your new toy will be far better than your old one before it even breaks. When the rate of doubling gets closer to 10 years, buying a new computer isn't going to be so much as the new toy is faster but rather the old toy broke. Once that driving force is over with, electronic companies will be talking about other ways to produce money in more mundane ways.
Coles Law is my favorite.
Yummy.
No brain, no pain.
Isn't the first law of Thermodynamics that you don't talk about Thermodynamics?
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Well, fair enough, but what about Slashdot?