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Scientists Build Computer Using Carbon Nanotubes
trendspotter writes "Future computers could run on lab-grown circuits that are thousands of times thinner than a human hair and operate on a fraction of the energy required to power today's silicon-based computer chips, extending 'Moore's Law' for years to come. Stanford engineers' very basic computer device using carbon nanotube technology validates carbon nanotubes as potential successors to today's silicon semiconductors. The achievement is reported today in an article on the cover of Nature magazine written by Max Shulaker and other doctoral students in electrical engineering. The research was led by Stanford professors Subhasish Mitra and H.S. Philip Wong."
The most interesting thing about these alternative transistors might be environmental impact. I'm under the impression that traditional wafer fab is water intensive and heats and/or pollutes water. There are dangerous things such as arsenic and bromine involved. If the carbon nano-tube process is clean that'd be awesome. It would be great to think that we could dispose of obsolete technology by incinerating it, and not release anything other than CO2 into the air, leaving behind slag that's full of recyclable silver and copper.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
So in 1971, we could do 740,000 additions in a second, given that your new law asserts doubling of computational power every 18 months, that implies that that in jesus' time it took them 3.5e386 *days* to do one addition. Something tells me this is bullshit :P