Building Complex Circuits With Carbon Nanotubes 42
Lorien_the_first_one writes "MIT's Technology Review reports that carbon nanotubes are being used to fabricate complex circuits. From the article, 'The first three-dimensional carbon nanotube circuits, made by researchers at Stanford University, could be an important step in making nanotube computers that could be faster and use less power than today's silicon chips. Such a computer is still at least 10 years off, but the Stanford work shows it is possible to make stacked circuits using carbon nanotubes. Stacked circuits cram more processing power in a given area, and also do a better job dissipating waste heat.'"
Re:Heat dissipation (Score:1, Interesting)
carbon tube are heat resistent, you do no need to cool them.
So this means 3-D processors, right? (Score:1, Interesting)
What is this going to change? I guess it would be easier to update the designs because you don't have the 2-D crosspath issue anymore. And you should also have shorter distances between components. Is there anything else significant?
Re:So this means 3-D processors, right? (Score:3, Interesting)
What is this going to change? I guess it would be easier to update the designs because you don't have the 2-D crosspath issue anymore. And you should also have shorter distances between components. Is there anything else significant?
Without the limitations of 2-D interconnects, you could:
build barrel rollers / barrel shifters in the shape of a barrel...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrel_shifter [wikipedia.org]
build ring oscillators and ring counters in the shape of a ring...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_oscillator [wikipedia.org]
Currently, using 2-D techniques, you can easily build on-die flat arrays of parallel processors. With 3-D, I guess you could build on-die 3-D arrays of parallel processors. Still out of luck for hypercube (4-D) architecture, although wiring might be somewhat simpler..
Re:So in 10 years? (Score:4, Interesting)
Very true, 10 years seems very optimistic considering the colossal challenges of reliably growing nano-tubes. The technique presented in the article offers a way to work around defective (conducting) nano-tubes rather than eliminate such defects. The research done here is very interesting, but processors need to be stamped out by the millions; a technique that requires manipulation of tubes that is customized to each circuit based on random yields simply can't be scaled up into full production.
Before nano-tube processors come out, the defect rate would have to be low enough that most processors have zero (or few) defects rather than each requiring careful tuning of each gate to get them functional. I think this is a case where there will be a big gap between the proof-of-principle functional gates in labs and a marketable product. Still, the prospect of three-dimensional nano-tube processors is very exciting even if it's a long way off. The work presented in the article is also very interesting and is certainly a clever technique, even if it may not find commercial application for a long time.