Crossbar nanowire chips combine to form tiny CPU for beyond-Moore’s-law electronics

As transistor technology continues its march forward with smaller, faster components, we’re getting ever closer to the point at which the realities of atomic scale will put an end to Moore’s law — unless we find a way around it. A team of researchers from Harvard and non-profit research company Mitre have devised a possible solution to the problem using nanowires as a stand-in for traditional transistors in tiny processors.

The device created in the lab is by no means a match for modern computer processors, but it is built on a completely new process. The chip designed by chemist Charles Lieber and his team uses germanium core nanowires just 15 nanometers wide.

Crossbar nanowire chips combine to form tiny CPU for beyond-Moore’s-law electronics



This sound promising, in my book any kind of technology that challenges Moore's law is a step in the right direction, considering we are approaching the limit with what can be done with standard silicone.

As the article states, currently the technology in its present form is no match for modern computer processors, but one has to wonder how far this new kind of tech will allow us to go, if and when it enters the mainstream market?

www.mooreslaw.org...

reply to post by andy06shake


Thanks for this thread, I love when new chip-speeds are either announced or the tech which may eventually create them is spotlighted. Someone will likely combine several of these innovations into one unit at some point, and then we'll see something which will drop the jaws of even the most speed-optimistic among us.

I've long envisioned computers and other machines which are run by a gas (the size of the processors, etc., brought down to gaseous proportions).

andy06shake


This sound promising, in my book any kind of technology that challenges Moore's law is a step in the right direction, considering we are approaching the limit with what can be done with standard silicone.

As the article states, currently the technology in its present form is no match for modern computer processors, but one has to wonder how far this new kind of tech will allow us to go, if and when it enters the mainstream market?

www.mooreslaw.org...

edit on 3-2-2014 by andy06shake because: (no reason given)

The articles title is not very accurate,

Nor is your take on it in response, This discovery means the Continuation of moores law.

It is an advancement that could allow the continuation of it, not its death.

With the limits on standard silicon moores law was at risk of not holding true, but as more advances in meta materials that continue to allow us to increase in processor performance.

reply to post by andy06shake

I think what they're saying is that this is not "beyond" Moor's law but that if we don't advance our technology soon enough Moor's Law will outpace us. For example, anyone noticed how in the past few years they've produced multiple core cpu's rather than increasing the clock frequency? They're doing this because they hit a threshold where the cpu's would heat up too much. More broadly speaking, something like this could happen with computing in general where we hit a threshold beyond which we fail to keep pace with Moor's Law.

I personally don't think we've hit a limit yet in computing because there's so much news coming out. HOWEVER, Moor's Law might outpace us. Thing is, we will likely experience jumps in our advances and without being able to exactly anticipate them we can't say for sure how rapidly we'll advance. BUT I do think we can make rough calculations about the theoretical potential of computing and I"m sure this has already been done. We probably cannot reproduce our universe on a computer unless we had a computer exactly the size and composition of our universe BARE MINIMUM - which is impossible without it being multi-dimensional, I think.

I also think reproducing the computational capacity of the human brain is further down the road than thought because recent research hints Dendrites are mini-computers. They were thought to just be communications mediums.

Double post. Accidentally hit Quote - and not Edit - without being aware.

reply to post by andy06shake


Nice finD

I can't wait to see what will be done with this tech

Btw its Moore's LAW for a reason

Not a hypothesis or theory

Another_Nut
reply to post by andy06shake

 

Nice finD

I can't wait to see what will be done with this tech

Btw its Moore's LAW for a reason

Not a hypothesis or theory

That's not true, it's not an actual law like you are thinking. It's an observation, not a physical or natural law.

ETA: Originally he predicted every 18 months, and when things slowed down, he changed it to every 2 years and acted like it wasn't originally 18 months.

reply to post by andy06shake


I thought germanium had a flaw in it that caused the "on" state to fail ? Back voltage. Even though germanium switches MUCH faster than silicon.

Good job guys. Next up 3d printable circuitry.

reply to post by OccamsRazor04


I know sorry was just having a little fun.

Even with the smiley it never translated well here lol

But ,well i need a second line

reply to post by Another_Nut


Ahh, makes sense. I think it's also the fact there are a lot of people here who WOULD say that and be serious.

reply to post by benrl


Where did I say that this was the death Moore's law?

I simply implied that this type of technology challenged said law not completely circumvented it. I suppose you could come to that conclusion because of the title. However the title is not my own it belongs to the article and they do like to draw the crowds with a little sensationalism.

Hopefully and eventually this will open up new avenues and production processes regarding this type of industry, that's got to be a good thing!

reply to post by andy06shake


No no, the article is claiming we are moving beyond moores law, we are not, the article confirms that moore law is wrong, while saying we are moving beyond it.

Moores law is not a limit, it simply states that processors will advance exponetially.

People try to quantify it but all its saying is that better processors lead to better processors.

IN part because of them being better, its easier to design better because of the added computational power.

Each step forward opens several more avenues that accelerate advancement.

ITS not set in stone, its not a "Law" its not even a hard limit.

Its more of an idiom that holds true for technology.

Its a minor pet peeve of mine that the article jumped on is all.

reply to post by benrl


Well i suppose like any other law its only a law until it broken or surpassed, humanity does have the tendency to do both.

As you have said, its a materials issue and meta materials seem to be the way forward.

I can still dream of one day having a 10Ghz, 48core CPU sitting in my desktop firing away on all cylinders so to speak, need one hell of a cooling system all the same. LoL

andy06shake
reply to post by benrl

 

Well i suppose like any other law its only a law until it broken or surpassed, humanity does have the tendency to do both.

As you have said, its a materials issue and meta materials seem to be the way forward.

I can still dream of one day having a 10Ghz, 48core CPU sitting in my desktop firing away on all cylinders so to speak, need one hell of a cooling system all the same.

LoL

edit on 4-2-2014 by andy06shake because: (no reason given)

Thats why its only an Idiom to Tech people, its not a rule, several times in the past Moores "law" was at risk, and each time (sometimes longer, sometimes shorter than the idioms time frame) it still advances.

SO for the most part its held true, and looks thanks to things mentioned in the article to still holding "true"

And thats the beauty of the Articles discovery,

The whole thing with Carbon nanotubes, and graphite etc,

Is that they minimize the heat "bleed" that silicon has.

Take the new 4th gen intels, they where not so much of a Performance boost, but an efficiency boost.

IN theory these discoveries could one day lead to a rig like the one you say 10ghz 40 cores etc, and with the advancements in meta material could operate at SUPER LOW Voltage.

Which would lead to Super computers the size of desktops, with out any need for a Liquid cooling set up.

ok ill bite



Posted: Mar 15, 2010
Future bio-nanotechnology will use computer chips inside living cells
www.nanowerk.com...=15292.php


Beyond Genetics: DNA in Nanotechnology
www.nature.com...

benrl

andy06shake
reply to post by benrl

 

Well i suppose like any other law its only a law until it broken or surpassed, humanity does have the tendency to do both.

As you have said, its a materials issue and meta materials seem to be the way forward.

I can still dream of one day having a 10Ghz, 48core CPU sitting in my desktop firing away on all cylinders so to speak, need one hell of a cooling system all the same.

LoL

edit on 4-2-2014 by andy06shake because: (no reason given)

Thats why its only an Idiom to Tech people, its not a rule, several times in the past Moores "law" was at risk, and each time (sometimes longer, sometimes shorter than the idioms time frame) it still advances.

SO for the most part its held true, and looks thanks to things mentioned in the article to still holding "true"

And thats the beauty of the Articles discovery,

The whole thing with Carbon nanotubes, and graphite etc,

Is that they minimize the heat "bleed" that silicon has.

Take the new 4th gen intels, they where not so much of a Performance boost, but an efficiency boost.

IN theory these discoveries could one day lead to a rig like the one you say 10ghz 40 cores etc, and with the advancements in meta material could operate at SUPER LOW Voltage.

Which would lead to Super computers the size of desktops, with out any need for a Liquid cooling set up.

Being involved in the testing side of the matter - this will also bring in an even challenging task of making sure that these will function as designed. Problem is, the testing side is still lagging since the current process is more of a mechanical manner. The smaller the device becomes the likelihood of getting these tested properly is greatly reduced.

reply to post by andy06shake


This technology could become very important if quantum computing doesn't make any significant breakthroughs in the next few years.

The end of Moore's law will come: People often mistake the exponential growth of processing power as moore's law itself, but in reality the power is only a byproduct of the increased amount of transistors: The processing power is increasing because the transistors are shrinking.

And they can only shrink so far; some transistors can only be a few atoms in length. Eventually there will be a point where transistors cannot get any smaller before quantum mechanics renders them useless. Breakthroughs like graphene and the like can stall the inevitable end to silicon processing, but won't halt it completely.