IBM Scientists Find New Way To Shrink Transistors

MarcAuslander writes that IBM scientists have discovered a way to replace silicon semiconductors with carbon nanotube transistors, an innovation the company hopes will dramatically improve chip performance and get the industry past the limits of Moore's law. According to the Times: In the semiconductor business, it is called the 'red brick wall' — the limit of the industry's ability to shrink transistors beyond a certain size. On Thursday, however, IBM scientists reported that they now believe they see a path around the wall. Writing in the journal Science, a team at the company's Thomas J. Watson Research Center said it has found a new way to make transistors from parallel rows of carbon nanotubes.

Comments

Show Me Something Made with C Nanotubes!

[Irate Engineer]

I've seen tons of articles like this over the last decade, touting carbon nanotubes as being the enabling technology for all sorts of improved applications.

Can anyone actually point me to something that has made it to production utilizing carbon nanotubes? I'm not being snarky here - I'm really curious to know if any of this is actually getting off the workbench into mainstream use anywhere.

Carbon nanotubes hit me as being a wonder invention like nuclear fusion; if we can build it it will be awesome, but we probably won't be able to build it for at least $DATE + 20 years.

Re:Limits of Moor's law??

[GrahamCox]

It's a badly and lazily written summary. Moore's "law" doesn't specify any limits, but for a while Moore's law hasn't held true because of some unforeseen physical limits of the current silicon technology we use.

This new technology may or may not deliver what it promises, but if it does, it will be a resumption of Moore's law, not breaking it. If anything, Moore's "law" was broken several years ago by the existing technology not living up to it.

I put "law" in quotes because it's not actually a law, just a prediction, and a rather wishful one at that.