If there’s one downside to powerful computers, it’s that they’re too damn big.
Luckily, that’s about to change. At least, if IBM has anything to say about it.
March 19 is the first day of IBM Think 2018, the company’s flagship conference, where the company will unveil what it claims is the world’s smallest computer. They’re not kidding: It’s literally smaller than a grain of salt.
Continue reading… “IBM unveils ‘world’s smallest computer’ with blockchain at Think 2018”
Each chip on this wafer has 10,000 nanotube transistors on it.
For more than ten years, engineers have been worrying that they are running out of tricks for continuing to shrink silicon transistors. Intel’s latest chips have transistors with features as small as 14 nanometers, but it is unclear how the industry can keep scaling down silicon transistors much further or what might replace them.
Continue reading… “Commercial nanotube transistors could be ready by 2020”
Researchers unveil the first working computer built entirely from carbon nanotube transistors.
A group of researchers at Stanford University have moved a step closer to answering the question of what happens when silicon, the standard material in today’s microelectronic circuits, reaches its fundamental limits for use in increasingly small transistors.
Continue reading… “Stanford engineers successfully build world’s first carbon nanotube computer”
Silicon-based transistors must be powered all the time.
Experts predict that in less than 20 years we will reach the physical limit of how much processing capability can be squeezed out of silicon-based processors in the heart of our computing devices. But a recent scientific finding that could completely change the way we build computing devices may simply allow engineers to sidestep any obstacles.
Continue reading… “Why computing will never be limited by Moore’s Law”
A computer chip that can heal its own injuries.
Our technologies are becoming more biological with each passing year. And here’s the latest breakthrough: Caltech engineers have developed an integrated computer chip that can learn to heal its own injuries.
Continue reading… “Microchip heals itself after being blasted by lasers”
AMF measures self-cooling in graphene.
Graphene is a substance that scientists have been highly interested in as an alternative material for faster-charging batteries. We’ve been hearing for several years about its potential to replace silicone in computer chips, but for the first time, we’re hearing that graphene might also be self-cooling, a feature that might be a huge boon for more efficient and energy-saving devices.
A memristor close-up
Hewlett-Packard scientists on Thursday are to report advances in the design of a new class of diminutive switches capable of replacing transistors as computer chips shrink closer to the atomic scale. The devices, known as memristors, or memory resistors, were conceived in 1971 by Leon O. Chua, an electrical engineer at the University of California, Berkeley, but they were not put into effect until 2008 at the H.P. lab here.
Continue reading… “Memristors Could Revolutionize the Memory Chip”
“When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images.” – Niels Bohr, recipient of the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physics
I’ve had this ongoing notion that researchers will soon reach the point of creating the ultimate small storage particle. In discussing this with some nanotech friends, they felt we may reach an endpoint when we get to the size of the electron. So I decided to run with that assumption and calculate out how long it would take, based on Moore’s Law, to reach a point where we are storing information on electrons.
Continue reading… “Creating the Ultimate Small Storage Particle”
An international team of scientists in Europe has created a silicon chip designed to function like a human brain. With 200,000 neurons linked up by 50 million synaptic connections, the chip is able to mimic the brain’s ability to learn more closely than any other machine.
Continue reading… “Silicon Chip Designed To Function Like A Human Brain”
Researchers at The University of Manchester have produced a ground-breaking new material, graphane, which has been derived from graphene.
Continue reading… “Ground-Breaking Material Discovered: Graphane”
Researchers at the University of Southern California have created a a clear, colorless disk about 5 inches in diameter that bends and twists like a playing card, with a lattice of more than 20,000 nanotube transistors. It is capable of having high-performance electronics printed on it using a potentially inexpensive low-temperature process.
Continue reading… “The Power Of Nanotubes”
Popular Mechanics announced its picks for the 2008 Breakthrough Awards awards in what the publication called The 10 Most Brilliant Gadets of the Year. Here’s the list of international winners; you may be surprised at the gadgets on the list.
Continue reading… “Popular Mechanics 2008 Breakthrough Awards Winners”
