![]() Quantum computing is seen as the future of computing devices that will cause a giant leap in computational and processing power, communications, and many other sectors that rely on digital data. While Moore did not specify the type of transistor built that will ensure the trend he predicted, these new transistor designs based on newly developed material can extend the lifetime of the fabled trend that ushered the development of the hardware industry. This time, sheets of graphene are rolled out to form the nanotubes. Scientists have gone as far as investigating origami (Paper folding in Japanese) structures to create a transistor-like device without adding any other material.Ĭarbon nanotube-based transistors is another class of transistors that rely on graphene. Researchers are still studying how to develop commercial graphene transistors. Graphene has all the properties required for future electronics in terms of its thinness, strength, flexibility, and good electricity conduction properties. It was discovered in 2004 by a group of physicists, a discovery that earned them the Nobel Price in 2010. Graphene is a monolayer of carbon atoms that form a hexagonal structure. Graphene and carbon nanotube transistors are the latest technologies investigated to replace silicone-based transistors. ![]() Graphene and Carbon Nanotubes: When Transistor Size no Longer Matters? If transistor miniaturization and arrangement reach their limit, alternative solutions can be developed, if they aren’t yet so. ![]() With the increasing complexity of artificial intelligence algorithms and the emergence of applications requiring considerable processing and communication capabilities such as extended reality, the current chips be rendered obsolete a few years after they are released. The future of computing and communications system relies a lot on the available hardware. Overcoming the Transistor Size Limit in the Future As companies are capable of refining their production process and creating new techniques to stack transistors in a given area, Moore’s law shall be able to survive for another period of time. However, all they were able to prove is that Moore’s law is witnessing a slowdown, rather than being completely dead. Several research articles have tried to study the validity of the law in the current era. The development of production technology is the only thing that can determine the evolution in the number of transistors. Predicting the end of Moore’s law is a speculation, as the law is a prediction itself. In comparison, commercial state-of-the-art chips such as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, to be used in the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4, utilizes a 4-nanometer process technology. This would also allow 50 billion transistors to be crammed in a fingernail-sized chip. This is only 10 times the size of a Silicon atom which stands at 0.2 nanometers. As of 2022, IBM has announced that it has successfully developed a two-nanometer technology. The development in transistor technology has been able to keep up with Moore’s law so far. Established by Intel cofounder Gordon Moore, the law predicts a doubling in the number of transistors every two years. The drive in the semiconductor industry has been guided in the last decades by Moore’s law. ![]() On the other end, large data centers with servers having huge storage capacity and notable processing power have been designed for intensive data crunching applications. The result has in particular been the advent of portable computing and communication devices such as laptops and smartphones. With the increasing miniaturization, and the ability to squeeze more transistors into a tiny area, smaller chip footprints are now capable of achieving what a computer filling a whole building could not even get close to back in the days. The first computers which relied on vacuum tubes, the predecessor of transistors, filled a whole room with minimum storage and processing capabilities compared to today’s standard. The fast evolution in transistor technology has paved the way to a ferocious development of hardware systems. To this end, what does reaching the size limit of the transistor mean for the future? Moore’s Law and Hardware Evolution However, the transistor size has been slowly reaching the physical limit which corresponds to the size of a Silicon atom. The miniaturization has been happening at a steady pace for the last few years. Over the years, transistors have been getting smaller and smaller with the advances in lithography technology which is allowing higher yield in the production process. The latest semiconductor shortage is a clear reflection of the important place it has in current technologies. This small semiconductor device invented at Bell Labs in 1947, has allowed the proliferation of integrated circuits, the core element in any hardware component. The advances in computing and communications wouldn’t have been possible without the transistor. ![]()
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