Tech
Basic Computer Built Using Carbon Nanotubes by Stanford University
Benita Matilda
First Posted: Sep 26, 2013 06:02 AM EDT
A team of Stanford engineers has developed a basic computer using carbon nanotubes, paving the way for the next generation of energy-efficient electronics.
The basic computer was built using carbon nanotubes that are hyped as the next generation electronic devices. These are semiconductors that use less energy and run faster than the silicon chips. For the computer industry that is grappling with several challenges regarding the fastest way of retrieving and storing data, this new development will help in the hunt for the successor of silicon chip that is heading toward its fundamental limits.
"People have been talking about a new era of carbon nanotube electronics moving beyond silicon. But there have been few demonstrations of complete digital systems using this exciting technology. Here is the proof," said Subhasish Mitra a Standford professor, electrical engineer and computer scientist and the lead of the research.
For long, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been considered as potential successors to the silicon transistor. But until this development it was unclear whether CNTs could fulfill all the expectations.
"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 Professor Jan Rabaey, a world expert on electronic circuits and systems at the University of California-Berkeley.
This major development by the Stanford team is termed as an important scientific breakthrough by Mihail Roco, a senior advisor for nanotechnology at the National Science Foundation.
It was nearly 15 years ago that the experts used carbon nanotubes into transistors and on-off switches and other digital electronic systems, but could not use it in building complex circuits.
Two key contributions by the Stanford team were highlighted by Professor Giovanni De Micheli, director of the Institute of Electrical Engineering at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland. First was the process of fabricating CNT- based circuits and the second the development of the simple circuit that shows the possibility of computation using CNTs.
Naresh Shanbhag, a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and director of SONIC, stated that it might takes years for the technology to mature but the Stanford team's work indicates the possibility of producing industrial scale carbon nanotube semiconductors.
The CNT computer is able to perform tasks like counting and sorting numbers. It functions on a basic operating system that makes it possible for it to switch between processes.
The details of this new development were published in the cover of the journal Nature.
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First Posted: Sep 26, 2013 06:02 AM EDT
A team of Stanford engineers has developed a basic computer using carbon nanotubes, paving the way for the next generation of energy-efficient electronics.
The basic computer was built using carbon nanotubes that are hyped as the next generation electronic devices. These are semiconductors that use less energy and run faster than the silicon chips. For the computer industry that is grappling with several challenges regarding the fastest way of retrieving and storing data, this new development will help in the hunt for the successor of silicon chip that is heading toward its fundamental limits.
"People have been talking about a new era of carbon nanotube electronics moving beyond silicon. But there have been few demonstrations of complete digital systems using this exciting technology. Here is the proof," said Subhasish Mitra a Standford professor, electrical engineer and computer scientist and the lead of the research.
For long, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been considered as potential successors to the silicon transistor. But until this development it was unclear whether CNTs could fulfill all the expectations.
"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 Professor Jan Rabaey, a world expert on electronic circuits and systems at the University of California-Berkeley.
This major development by the Stanford team is termed as an important scientific breakthrough by Mihail Roco, a senior advisor for nanotechnology at the National Science Foundation.
It was nearly 15 years ago that the experts used carbon nanotubes into transistors and on-off switches and other digital electronic systems, but could not use it in building complex circuits.
Two key contributions by the Stanford team were highlighted by Professor Giovanni De Micheli, director of the Institute of Electrical Engineering at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland. First was the process of fabricating CNT- based circuits and the second the development of the simple circuit that shows the possibility of computation using CNTs.
Naresh Shanbhag, a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and director of SONIC, stated that it might takes years for the technology to mature but the Stanford team's work indicates the possibility of producing industrial scale carbon nanotube semiconductors.
The CNT computer is able to perform tasks like counting and sorting numbers. It functions on a basic operating system that makes it possible for it to switch between processes.
The details of this new development were published in the cover of the journal Nature.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone