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Faster and smaller transistors are being developed and tested, and here's one of the more interesting new designs. It is effectively a vacuum tube/transistor hybrid. By utilizing modern manufacturing processes it is possible to make extremely small vacuum tubes that do not have any of the problems of older tubes, and also happen to be able to operate in the terahertz range.
Although we are still at an early stage with our research, we believe the recent improvements we've made to the vacuum-channel transistor could one day have a huge influence on the electronics industry, particularly for applications where speed is paramount. Our very first effort to fashion a prototype produced a device that could operate at 460 gigahertz -- roughly 10 times as fast as the best silicon transistor can manage. This makes the vacuum-channel transistor very promising for operating in what is sometimes known as the terahertz gap, the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum above microwaves and below infrared.
(Score: 3, Informative) by meisterister on Tuesday June 24 2014, @04:35PM
I could swear I've heard of something like this before. Could someone who has read TFA comment on whether or not it's similar to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_memory/ [wikipedia.org]
The above link is to the wikipedia article on bubble memory.
Here's an article from 2012 that seems to be the same idea:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/24/nanoscale-vacuum-transistors-way-cool-but-still-not-as-pretty-as-a-glowing-12au6/ [wattsupwiththat.com]
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 4, Informative) by janrinok on Tuesday June 24 2014, @06:02PM
I agree - it seems to be your second link that describes it perfectly, including the same authors' names. I'm not sure why the news has been re-released now (23 Jun 2014) although it does not claim that the work has been carried out in the immediate past. Perhaps someone has found a reliable way to manufacture these devices, or maybe someone has just had a bright idea on how to use this capability. Of course, there is always the possibility that no-one took the bait when it was first announced and they felt that it could do with a bit more publicity.
I suppose that makes it a dupe from before SN even existed!
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 26 2014, @09:20PM
Maybe it's to do with the HP research method?