Current state-of-the-art microprocessors have more than 40 million transistors; by 2012 they could well have over five billion. Nanometer scale computer design is already with us...
Such is the course the fields of nanotechnology and nanocircuits - circuits on a scale of one billionth of a metre in size - impose for miniature computer chips in the future. But before these chips can be made to function, the construction and dynamic behaviour of such devices has first to be understood. Several new developments are already taking place and a stage is nearing now where it could soon go into production.
In order to keep computers advancing in power as they have for decades, a new U.S. research initiative partnering industry, academia and government has now launched to hunt in nanotechnology - science and engineering on a molecular scale - for a successor to today's dominant chipmaking method.
Because these chips, or semiconductors, provide the enabling technology for virtually all computation and communications systems, leadership in semiconductor technology is essential to being competitive in the industries that drive the world's economy.
The Nanoelectronics Research Initiative plans, A US initiative covering the next 15 years, is aimed to create devices with features less than 10 nanometers - or billionths of a meter - in size. This is roughly 10 times smaller than in current state-of-the-art chips.
Current, cutting-edge chips now boast features only 90 nanometers in size, which is less than a wavelength of visible light.
When you get below 10 nanometers, you get to distances on the order of a few atoms, and hit fundamental physical limits no engineering can solve. At this distance, electrons can jump back and forth at random and you cannot maintain states of one or zero distinctly. Whatever company or companies have the winning technologies here will be immensely profitable to shareholders.
Computing power runs the modern world - welcome to Nanotech Computing.
