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posted by CoolHand on Wednesday November 11 2015, @01:05AM   Printer-friendly
from the all-nanotubes-all-the-time dept.

The interplay of size and time may make carbon nanotubes the answer to the computer industry's prayers as it grapples with pressure to make silicon chips ever-smaller. Or the same factors may turn CNTs into a technological dead end.

Size refers to the dimensions of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) vs. the shrinking geometry of the components on today's silicon chips. A CNT is basically a tube whose wall is 1 carbon atom thick. The tube itself is 1 nanometer (nm, or one billionths of a meter, or one-thousandths of a micron) in diameter, although it can be tens of microns long. Although made of carbon, single-wall CNTs are excellent conductors thanks to quantum conductance, which allows electrons to propagate along the length of the tubes.

Time refers to the progression of Moore's Law, an observation by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore that the number of components on a chip can be expected to double every two years, without an increase in price. According to that, about more eight years from now silicon technology, which has reached 14nm geometry, will reach the atomic level. At that time, presumably the industry will no longer be able to uphold Moore's Law by making silicon components continually smaller.

Will CNTs, with their 1nm geometry, be ready by then?


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Wednesday November 11 2015, @02:44AM

    by frojack (1554) on Wednesday November 11 2015, @02:44AM (#261545) Journal

    But that's the end of the road.

    Famous Last Words.

    But anyway, I wonder how fragile something one atom thick might be.

    A tube whose wall is 1 carbon atom thick. The tube itself is 1 nanometer in diameter, although it can be tens of microns long.

    You would think one good knock would destroy them.

    With regard to the third dimension we've been doing that [wikipedia.org] for some time. Its kind of a mess, and vertical complexity is no where near what horizontal complexity is.

    If we can arrange nano-tubes in ANY orientation as we lay them down, they could well be that thing that allows chip layout in three dimensions through multiple layers.

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  • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday November 11 2015, @06:40PM

    by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday November 11 2015, @06:40PM (#261855)

    >You would think one good knock would destroy them.

    Not really - they're moderately flexible, and held together by the strongest atomic bonds known to man. (graphene has an ultimate tensile strength of 130,000MPa, compared to 2,000-2,600MPa for steel.)

    Plus, not much delivers a focused knock at that scale. Hit it crosswise with the edge of a sharp scalpel and you'll probably break it though.