IBM Nanotechnology Transistor Faster than Silicon 154
Dustin Destree writes: "This article on MSNBC talks about how IBM has developed a new transistor based on nanotube technology that at its first stages outperforms even the fastest silicon transistor. Interesting read that gives ideas about where the computer industry is heading in the next few years."
Fastest Transistor (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Fastest Transistor (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't forget this is an IBM's R&D lab here. In 24-48 months we will hear that not only do they last an unlimited amount of time, they are twice as fast, and three times as small. Only thing between this new merical and us will be a huge licensing fee.
Speed=Heat=Wear. The principals of Moores Law could also track the life expectancy of the faster technologies.
Re:Fastest Transistor (Score:3, Informative)
Nanotechnology (Score:1, Redundant)
Re:Nanotechnology (Score:4, Interesting)
As a side note, IBM seems hell-bent on getting out of the hardware business, so if they manufacture carbon transistors themselves or license the technology to another firm remains to be seen.
Re:Not True (Score:1)
I wouldn't be. They are not selling all that well, despite being only around $300. Heck one came with my camera and I don't use it (FLASH is more rugged, and 320M is enough for most of my photo shoots....and when it isn't I have some 128M's, all of which will survive a fall to the ground)
Plus they already let some other places OEM them...
Is this the first. (Score:1)
Listen up, Sunshine! (Score:1, Insightful)
The second law of thermodynamics is an empirical law. It is based upon observations, with no theory backing it up. It's like watching traffic and saying "of the last 100 cars, 20 of them were blue, ergo, 20% of all cars are blue".
So I don't want you losers trotting out that little bit of 19th century superstition when trying to explain why that "anomolous heat" can't possibly exist, hence these fine upstanding chemists are obivious frauds who lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools. [eskimo.com]
If you yoyos weren't so busy burying your heads in the sand, you'd have the time to take an honest look at the data and do your own damn experiments to prove or disprove the matter once and for all. Instead you engage in ad hominem attacks rather than doing real science.
Re:Is this the first. (Score:2)
Yes, imagine that. A cluster of transistors.
Get a "cluster" of several hundred nodes and you might even have a full adder!
Reality check. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Reality check. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Reality check. (Score:4, Informative)
Compaies like this one (www.cnanotech.com), [Run by Richard Smalley, who co-discovered Fullerenes] are working to mass production (sub kiloton) of carbon nanotubes. Maybe not single-wall nanotubes, buth they're getting there.
Re:Reality check. (Score:1)
Re:Reality check. (Score:1)
many millions of dollars have already been invested by my government (us via nsf and doe), and probably by other organizations.
Re:Reality check. (Score:1)
I got this quote from the article from MSNBC. Obviously the view that carbon nanotubes are a commercially viable products isn't yet decided by some important people in the industry.
mod parent up (Score:1)
Re:Reality check. (Score:2)
www.cnanotech.com
-B
Re:Reality check. (Score:1)
Re:Reality check. (Score:2)
There are a ton of interesting problems out there. No shortage at all. For the most part the ones that get money dumped on them tend to be the ones that solve problems people are having (more so if those people have money). So knowing more uses for nanotubes is just going to increase the chances that more people work on making them, and have access to better equipment, and may actually figure it out.
So I'm all for figuring out what something is worth before we burn money on making it happen...aren't you?
Re:Reality check. (Score:2)
Brings to mind the IBM research about Gallium Arsenide chips from 15 or so years ago. This is nothing new.
Re:Reality check. (Score:2)
Blah blah blah. Where's all that cool stuff I read about five years ago? Haven't seen a single bit of that technology used yet.
Intel STILL hasn't made a chip that compares with the DEC Alpha, and the Alpha is essentially dead now.
Re:Reality check. (Score:1)
that's why it's called the Alpha
Re:Reality check. (Score:2)
Digital Equipment Corp (RIP) designed a 64 bit processor that ran at speeds in the hundreds of megahertz back when Intel and AMD were busy fighting over who had the best Pentium-class chip. One of the last few DEC Alpha chips on the market was the 600 MHz 21264. It was easily twice as fast as the 600 MHz AMD Athlon, which was in it's place quite a bit speedier than the 600 MHz Pentium III.
Two reasons why AMD didn't go bankrupt after the abysmal K5 processor:
1) They bought out NexGen, who designed the K6
2) They hired most of DEC's original Alpha engineers, who designed the Athlon
AMD's engineers were always worthless until they bought out everyone else's engineers.
Lack of curiosity (Score:2)
Fast as hell nanotube transistors are hardly new. (Score:1, Interesting)
Is IBM actually doing something new in the way of making them practical for large scale or better integration?
Re:Fast as hell nanotube transistors are hardly ne (Score:1)
Re:Fast as hell nanotube transistors are hardly ne (Score:1)
Nanotech Owns (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Nanotech Owns (Score:2, Insightful)
I suspect this might just be PR; they haven't shown that they can produce nanotransistors at a reasonable cost, or hook them together in large enough arrays.
Nanotube Valley (Score:4, Funny)
-c
Diamonds are girls best friend. (Score:1)
Possible drawback? (Score:2, Funny)
Faster, more powerful... in the next round of tests perhaps we'll find out it reacts poorly when in the vicinity of kryptonite.
Re:Possible drawback? (Score:1)
Re:Does this mean... (Score:1)
So... (Score:2)
Can we mass produce it? (Score:1)
It doesn't matter if its faster or smaller or more efficient or God's gift to computerdom, if it can't deliver x Computers a week to CompUSA.
Re:Can we mass produce it? (Score:1)
Just don't take a picture of your processor (Score:1)
(It makes a nice video though...)
Another article with a little more information... (Score:5, Informative)
It's too bad (Score:4, Informative)
First of all, nano is e-9, not e-12 like says. Second, the tubes don't carry electric charge on the interiors like a straw. It is carried on the surface--the interior is a vacuum. And fourth, the tubes are nano in length as well, which kind of makes making a ribbon cable moot.
Re:It's too bad (Score:4, Funny)
Re:It's too bad (Score:1)
Re:It's too bad (Score:3, Informative)
Third, nanotubes aren't 10x as strong as steel. Steel is 10x as strong as steel - it just takes 10x as much of it. Nanotubes might be 10x as strong as an equivalent weight of steel, or an equivalent volume thereof, but that's not what the article says. Or maybe they meant an equivalent number of atoms, though if all you have is 1 atom, it's not steel...
Why, oh why can't people write?
Re:It's too bad (Score:1)
carbon nanotubes and flash lights... (Score:1)
So remember not to use a flash when taking photos of your circuitboards :)
Well said (Score:1)
>It is really the performance we are after," said Phaedon Avouris,
>manager of nanoscience and nanotechnology for IBM Research.
Re:Well said (Score:1)
Well said by a manager of nanoscience and nanotechnology: "little bit overhyped" - I quess he's just not a marketdroid then, it's nice to see nerd-in-control.
Nanologic ***Circuits** Have Already Been Built... (Score:5, Informative)
What's the catch? (Score:1)
And what substrate will they use? How will they build it en masse? These are important questions that this article "failed" to mention [sigh].
Re:What's the catch? (Score:1)
Uh, yeah, right. Let us assume that it works, is affordable, and will be out tomorrow while we are assuming. Heck, lets assume that it will kick eveyone's ass while we're at it!
My point is lack of information is not information.
How fast is fast? (Score:1)
Only one side of the problem solved. (Score:3, Interesting)
In future technology it will take several clock cycles to get a signal at a speed of light from one side of the chip to the other. Its impossible to breat that rule.
Imagine distributing a clock where the destination is 50 cycles ahead and each clock path has to be accurate to within a 10th of a cycle.
Or if one transistor has one atom of impurity it will make a pipeline stage three times slower and basicly make the chip unworkable.
The material to make these circuits out of isnt the biggest problem. Even before silicon runs out of steam we will hit a great big technology wall which requires new ways of thinking.
I beleve asynchronous logic is the answear but thats just me.
IBM articles... (Score:5, Informative)
SI units? (Score:5, Funny)
Currently we are working on a 1,000,000th the size of a cow process to make our chips.
Re:SI units? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:SI units? (Score:1)
Si = Silicon.
The average human hair is 0.1 millimeters wide.
The nanotubes are 100000 times thinner, which equals 1nm (1*10^-9 meter).
Cow chips are overrated. (Score:3, Funny)
Single wall carbon nanotube practical issues. (Score:5, Insightful)
One is that single wall nanotubes are oxygen sensitive. Specifically, contact with O2 will cause single site defects in the nanotube structure, thus causing the whole nanotube to lose its electronic properties. It makes me wonder about how they will package these "molecular transistors" such that O2 can't get to it, but the encapsulation of the nanotube doesn't cause it to short out.
Another is that when these things heat up, they do ignite. As we've seen with the light-based ignition shown in Science and here on slashdot, these materials do burn. The above mentioned oxygen reaction sometimes causes the semi-conducting nanotubes to become insulators, thus they heat up, ignite, and disintegrate. So I'm wondering if frying one's nanotube-based chip would be more than just a figurative term if this happened.
Finally, there is the fabrication issue. I know that in the near future, one can make kilotons of nanotubes, and probably even kilograms of single wall nanotubes today (maybe 2kg a year, but you don't need that much if you only need 1 nanotube), but how are you going to fabricate them into architechures onto chips with existing chip fabrication technology?
Maybe IBM has all this worked out. I do have to remember that what they've published today is what they already have covered in patents and what they've been working on already for several months to one year. They don't publish unless they've got more going on AND if they already have the technology protected.
Re:Single wall carbon nanotube practical issues. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Single wall carbon nanotube practical issues. (Score:1)
With nanites. First you create a nanite. Then you make a nanite that self replicates using surrounding molecules. Then you're fucked. The blue goo!
Don't believe everything you read... (Score:3, Interesting)
IBM announced it has created the highest performing nanotubes transistors to date and has proven that carbon nanotubes -- tube-shaped molecules made of carbon atoms that are 50,000 times thinner than a human hair -- can outperform the leading silicon transistor prototypes available today.
From the MSNBC article:
ARMONK, NEW YORK-BASED IBM said it used a carbon nanotube -- a tiny cylindrical structure made up of carbon atoms that is about 100,000 times thinner than a human hair
So which is it - 100,000 or 50,000 times smaller than a human hair? It seems that there is quite a bit of hype on the MSNBC side of things. Doesn't it bother anyone that MSNBC distorted the truth?
Re:Don't believe everything you read... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Don't believe everything you read... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Don't believe everything you read... (Score:1)
Huh? What's silicon? (Score:2, Flamebait)
Oh? Silicon computing isn't based on atoms?
Re:Huh? What's silicon? (Score:1)
How does this affect heat reduction? (Score:1, Insightful)
hrmm... (Score:1)
Hedge your bets (Score:3, Funny)
Clicking on MSNBC link may download hostile code (Score:5, Interesting)
Do not click on that link with automatic downloading of DLLs or Active-X controls enabled.
I was surprised to see hostile code from a supposedly respectable news organization. There's no contractual relationship or EULA which could possibly justify this. In California, this is a criminal offense. [ca.gov] California law is tougher on computer viruses and related hostile code than other states.
Here's the relevant Calfornia law:
"502. (a) It is the intent of the Legislature in enacting this section to expand the degree of protection afforded to individuals, businesses, and governmental agencies from tampering, interference, damage, and unauthorized access to lawfully created computer data and computer systems." ...
-
(4) Knowingly accesses and without permission adds, alters,
damages, deletes, or destroys any data, computer software, or
computer programs which reside or exist internal or external to a
computer, computer system, or computer network.
- (5) Knowingly and without permission disrupts or causes the
disruption of computer services or denies or causes the denial of
computer services to an authorized user of a computer, computer
system, or computer network.
- (6) Knowingly and without permission provides or assists in
providing a means of accessing a computer, computer system, or
computer network in violation of this section.
- (7) Knowingly and without permission accesses or causes to be
accessed any computer, computer system, or computer network.
-
(8) Knowingly introduces any computer contaminant into any
computer, computer system, or computer network.
That seems to cover it.I have filed a complaint with the Office of the California Attorney General in this matter.
billion on a chip for a couple dollars (Score:3, Insightful)
Better Article on ZDNet (Score:1, Redundant)
CNET article (Score:3, Informative)
Size doesn't matter (Score:2, Funny)
The small (size) is of course very important, but it is a little bit overhyped. It is really the performance we are after," said Phaedon Avouris, manager of nanoscience and nanotechnology for IBM Research.
Who says size doesn't matter? As long as the electrons are satisfied!
-ez
Landfill Fodder? (Score:1)
Trash compactors breaking?
Reusability/decay?
Terminator/Matrix future (Score:1)
Then again, I'm probably over-simplifying the issueby thinking it's raw speed that a true thinking machine needs.
Wires (Score:2)
The Raven
More information (Score:1)
Re:the law (Score:2)
On the other hand, software has a way of becoming so abstract as to ensure that computers will always need to get faster.
Re:the law (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:the law (Score:2)
Moore's 'LAW' probably is a self fullfilling prophecy, and someday as all the naysayers state, it will not come true.
However, I believe that when that day comes, and the hardware can't be made any faster, then the software will just get more efficient to make the hardware SEEM faster.