P*****l
发帖数: 438 | 1 How many people in this article are in trouble now ?
Tiny transistor breaks new limits
Thursday, 18 October, 2001, 14:03 GMT 15:03 UK
Bell Labs also built the first ever transistor in 1947
Scientists in the US may have paved the way towards working molecular
computers.
A group of researchers at Bell Labs have made tiny functioning transistors a
million times smaller than a grain of sand.
Making large quantities of the tiny components should be straightforward
because they self-assemble.
But researchers caution that it could be years before such small components
find their way into commercial devices or desktop computers.
Bulk bits and bytes
The biggest improvements in the processing power of a chip have come from
shrinking the components that make up the device.
The first transistor was roughly 2.5 centimetres (one inch) across and now
it is possible to cram more than a billion of them on to a single chip.
Silicon chips use transistors to form the underlying logic of the processor
and as storage for memory.
Bell Labs scientists Zhenan Bao and Hendrik Schon, creators of the molecular
transistor Bell Labs
But many researchers are working towards what is regarded as the ultimate in
miniaturisation: to use clusters of molecules to form components rather
than rely on the relatively bulky structures that form transistors on today'
s computer chips.
Each molecular transistor is 10 times smaller than any components created
with today's most advanced chip making techniques.
The work by Bell Labs scientists Hendrik Schoen, Zhenan Bao and Hong Meng
could have made this possible by creating tiny working circuits built from a
class of organic materials known as thiols.
Commercial break
One of the main challenges of working on molecular scales is finding a way
to build working devices. The trio have overcome this problem by making
their clusters of carbon, hydrogen and sulphur molecules self assemble.
"We simply make a solution of the organic semiconductor, pour it on the base
, and the molecules do the work of finding the electrodes and attaching
themselves," said Dr Zhenan Bao.
Already the researchers have used the organic components to build a simple
circuit, known as a voltage inverter, which is often used in computer
processors. The research is reported in the journal Nature.
Bell Labs said it could be a decade before the tiny transistors started to
appear in commercial devices.
At about the same time, current methods of making ever smaller components to
fit on silicon chips are expected to hit fundamental physical limits.
In 1947, scientists William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain
invented the transistor at Bell Labs. | P*****l
发帖数: 438 | 2 almost 10 years past, any progress in commercialization for those tiny
transistors?
It looks so simple, ""We simply make a solution of the organic semiconductor
, pour it on the base, and the molecules do the work of finding the
electrodes and attaching themselves," said Dr Zhenan Bao.
Will this simple bottom-up approach make future better computer chips? | P*****l
发帖数: 438 | 3 1954 First transistor radio;(Regency TR-1, on market for 49.99$, just
contain 4 transistors). This one should be easy for current nano scientists
to replicate to demonstrate that their claimed molecular transistor is
really functioning.
Ten years after the invention of transistor:
1947 December 16, invention of point-contact transistor
1948 January, Shockley invents junction transistor; The military is
informed about transistors
1949 First Germanium transistors sold
1950 Transistors developed at Bell Labs
1951 Junction transistor developed, J Bardeen leaves Bell Labs
1952 Bell shares the technology
1953 First product to use transistor sold: hearing aids
1954 First transistor radio; First fully transistorized computer; Texas
Instruments makes silicon transistor
1956 Shockley leaves Bell Labs; Nobel Physics Prize Awarded to Shockley,
Brattain & Bardeen
1957 "Traitorous Eight" establish Fairchild Semiconductor Co.;
Superconductivity theory described by Bardeen et al |
|
