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Blazingly fast computer nanotech chips being tested at the MIT
Are you currently shopping for a new 2.4 GHz personal computer?
Do you feel it would be better to pony up a little more money to buy up a 2.8 GHz chip, instead of the cheaper (but slightly slower) 2.4 GHz?
Situations like these happen each day in computer stores around the world and yet, research funded by the MIT Institute for Soldier Nanotechnology and by the Interconnect Focus Center program, which is also being followed both in the federal government and by private-sector chip companies could radically change the shopping metrics consumers are used to.
How would you feel about a 500 GHz or even a 1,000 GHz computer processor?
That’s right, 250 to 500 times faster than today’s “state of the art” computer chips.
These new chips (or nano-chips, if you prefer) are made of a one-atom-thick lattice of pure carbon (or graphene) and use only a single transistor. This awesome technology could be commercialized in a year or two but it’s important to say that these are experimental chips.
Basically, MIT’s chip is capable of multiplying electrical signal frequencies in a way that may let it boost the clock speed to insanely fast ranges, like 500 GHz to 1,000 GHz. It’s a new application for graphene: a full-wave signal rectification and frequency doubling.
Technically speaking, given the extremely high electron mobility in graphene ($>$100,000 cm$^{2}$/Vs at room-temperature), such ambipolar devices have the potential to operate at very high frequencies and allow the fabrication of new THz sources and sensors, as well as high speed transmitters and receivers.
So that’s probably going to define our next computer processor speed jump to levels which will foster a whole new way to seamlessly operate with blazingly fast tech devices.
Business intelligence, advanced robotics, holographic computing and even artificial intelligence are all bound to benefit from such powerful computer chips which will convey data faster than ever before.
So, are you excited about buying your next computer, say, in two years?
Tags: 500 GHz, 1000 GHz, computer chips, nanochips, nano, nanotehnology, nanotech, nanospeed, carbon, lattice, one atom, graphene, single transistor, mit, experimental chip, signal frequencies, computers, processor speed, fast chips
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