Nanocomputer-like Memory Device
February 20th, 2007Breakthrough research that can pave the way for Nanocomputer-like memory microprocessors is taking place at the University of California. Professor Qing Jiang of the school’s Bourns College of Engineering is designing the prototype for a switch-like device that is based on Nanotechnology. Specifically, the device would use carbon-based Nanotubes that can mimic the switching the functionality of silicon-based microprocessors.
To understand how such a device would work, think of a telescope with an outer and inner chamber to enable it to move its lenses back and forth. Professor’s Jiang’s device would consist of two Nanotubes that work in the same manner, one acting as the inner tube and the other as the outer tube, able to move back and forth as needed. This activity and movement of the Nanotubes would make it possible for them to represent one of three possible switching positions at any moment in time, using an electrostatic charge as the conduction path.
These devices offer significantly faster read and write times than the computer industry’s current flash drive offerings. The Nanotube-based design is significantly smaller than its flash based counterpart as well.
As reported earlier in this blog, the move towards Nanotechnology-based computer technology is moving at a breakneck pace, and this design by Professor Jiang is one more step in that direction. An article outlining his research is available online and can be read here.
Racing towards the First NanoComputer: the Quantum Clock is Ticking Away
January 26th, 2007Computer manufacturers seems to be hurtling towards realizing one of the great dreams of Nanotechnology, the creation of the first Nanocomputer. Such a computer, by definition, would use atoms and molecules instead of silicon chips to transmit information. In order to understand how this would work, you have to understand that a computer, at its essence, is little more than a series of switches in an ‘on’ and ‘off’ state. Each switch occupies a position that represents an exponential number. Through a combination of ‘on’ or ‘off’ states, large numbers can be represented. Atoms, of course, cannot be ‘on’ or ‘off’—but they can occupy different positions in space, and this property can be leveraged to duplicate the same switching mechanism in a silicon-based computer. When that day arrives, the Nanocomputer, one that functions solely in the Quantum world, will be here.Before then, however, the computer industry will take incremental steps towards migrating over to this new technology. This will mean using hybrid technology, combining the Nanotechnology with existing silicon-based circuits, to increase the operating capacity and efficiency of computers. Moore’s Law, which states that technology would double every 18 months, would be turned on its head as the advances of Nanotechnology accelerate the pace of technological progress beyond the rate that Gordon Moore predicted.
The industry has shown that it is taking those incremental steps already. Some of the notable achievements include a technique by an IBM research team that claims they were able to transform iron and platinum into a Nanoparticle that can hold a magnetic charge for up to 10 years, making today’s flash drives obsolete. Other research teams, such as Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, developed their own circuits utilizing Nanotubes as Field Effect Transistors.
Recently, however, the boldest of announcements was made by Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini. He claimed the company was developing a chipset based on 45 nanometer silicon technology, and processors based on this technology would ship in the second half of 2007. At this breakneck pace, the full-fledged Quantum computer will be only a few years away. Read the article here.
Nanotechnology as the Next Big Thing
January 24th, 2007Could Nanotechnology displace the Internet as the Next Big Thing? The prospects are certainly real, if the technology lives up to the Utopian vision presented by its biggest proponent.
I have recently read (again) Eric Drexler’s seminal treatise, Engines of Creation. As I pore over his book, I can sense how with baited breath he speaks of the coming dawn of Nanotechnology and the promise it holds for curing man’s ills. It is a world filled with Nanomachines, Assemblers, Replicators and Nanocomputers that can create new materials out of existing molecules, repair cells, regenerate new Nanomachines, and fabricate whole new worlds out of the infinitesimally small.
Such a revolution in technology would certainly dwarf the impact that the Internet has had on business, but Nanotechnology need only fulfill a fraction of its true potential to create a revolution in the Business world. By all accounts, it seems to have done that already. However, unlike the Internet Bubble that littered the landscape with speculative “dot com” crashes, companies that have benefited from Nanotechnology have been established industries.
Some examples include the oil and gas industry, where Nanotechnology helped refine fuels to greater levels of efficiency. In the household goods and sport arena Nanotechnology’s impact can be felt in greater measures. The guiding premise of Nanotechnology—the ability to manipulate matter at the molecular level to build something new—has had obvious direct impact in industries that deal in fabrics. Footwarmers with greater heat resistance, washable bed mattresses, new, improved golf balls, camera films with finer degrees of emulsion, are all products that benefit from Nanotechnology’s ability to manufacture on the scale of one one-billionth of a meter.
The estimated market for goods engineered on this tiny scale is $1 trillion by 2015. That’s just if present trends continue. Wait until the day of the Nanocomputer arrives—the money spent to built that device will make current investments by Intel and the major computer manufacturers a drop in the bucket. So yes, I guess I do believe Nanotechnology is the next big thing.
