Engineers are racing to come up with the next big leap in processing power as computing begin to reach a new level of complexity, and a Stanford team chasing that very dream has built the world's first working carbon nanotube-based computer.
Silicon, the primary material in computers, has its limits, and some, such as the team at Stanford, believe that carbon holds more potential in terms of processing power. Carbon nanotubes are long, thin carbon chains that can easily be turned "on" or "off" like a transistor. They are comparable in size to human hair, and the thinner they are, the easier they are to shut on and off, akin to stepping on a garden hose.
"People have been talking about a new era of carbon nanotube electronics moving beyond silicon," said Subhasish Mitra, an electrical engineer and computer scientist and Chambers Faculty Scholar of Engineering. "But there have been few demonstrations of complete digital systems using this exciting technology. Here is the proof."
"There is no question that this will get the attention of researchers in the semiconductor community and entice them to explore how this technology can lead to smaller, more energy-efficient processors in the next decade," said Jan Rabaey, an expert on electronic circuits and systems at UC Berkeley.
As computer chips get smaller and faster, they also produce more heat, creating a problem that scientists fear could actually stand in the way of Moore's Law, which predicts that transistor density would double roughly every two years. At one point, engineers realize they are going to need a more efficient and heat-dissipating material than silicon for chips. Enter carbon nanotubes, which first arrived on the scene some 15 years ago when they were finally fashioned into transistors.
You can read the full published study detailing the carbon nanotube computer in the journal Nature.
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