Anyone here follow the nanotech world? Is it really going to replace semiconductors?
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Why as it happens I follow the proceedings of the nanotech world.
Much work has been done on using nano manufacturing techniques for creating new types of semiconductors. What effect this may have upon computing, or, more specifically, integrtated circuitry, is unclear.
One thing to bear in mind is that even if nano-scale rendering replaces current methods, this does not immediately translate into dramatically different kinds of computers at the processing level. The assumption is that the potentially billions of logic elements a nano 'chip' makes possible would mean the dawn of a whole new age of computing.
Any nano-scale processing matrix (so to speak) worth its almost non-weight in atom thin slices of gold would give us the theoretical engineering ability to build processing elements of staggering number and inter-networked complexity.
But alas, we haven't worked out the immense kinks preventing such an undertaking as of yet. Thousands of processors? Yes, done. Millions? Not yet. Billions? Only in novels.
Remarkably smaller and less energy hoggish yes, but more powerful in the high performance computing scalable sense? Maybe not.
See
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?NanotechDesignProblems
for a brief, but crisp, overview of the design issues.
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Also check out (some Lawrence Livermore blurbage) -
http://www-cms.llnl.gov/s-t/nano-semiconductors.html
And, regarding semiconductors (some old, but still interesting news from Sweden) -
http://unisci.com/stories/20021/0301025.htm
.d.