Nano Computing

Nanocomputing

By Ravin

Basics ➢

Nanotechnology is a group of sciences dealing with nanometre-scale devices and particles ➢ ➢

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One nanometre is 0.000000001 of a metre Nanometre-scale usually indicates measurements up to a few hundred nanometres

Nanocomputing deals with nanometrescale computers

Old school ➢

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Colossus is usually thought of as the first modern computer It used vacuum tubes, thyratrons and photomultipliers Not that powerful by today’s standards

The next generation ➢

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There are currently no commercially available nanocomputers but many organisations are developing them Nanocomputers have many uses, both as products and as part of other nanotechnologies such as bio-implants and the proposed Starseed launcher

Great expectations? In 2000, IBM announced a technique for turning an iron-platinum alloy into the magnetic equivalent of gold This could have led to smaller, better hard drives that work more efficiently than traditional cobalt-platinum methods Where is it? Nanotechnology isn’t so easy to translate from a laboratory to the real world

Why bother? ➢

Nanocomputing will change the computing industry in many ways ➢

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Existing technologies, like memory and backing storage, will become even more plentiful than they already are New technologies will be created to replace obsolete machines New standards and architectures will be needed to make use of the new systems when they are created

All of this requires enormous effort and resources. So why bother?

Potential ➢

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The simple answer is that it should be worth it Nanocomputers could be small enough to fit in a jacket pocket and still have enough storage to fit all of today’s Internet and more The same computer would have processing capabilities surpassing today’s supercomputers by far Not for at least 15 years, though

Is it really worth it? ➢

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Huge processing power and massive backing storage in a tiny box Guaranteed to be revolutionary and guaranteed to open up new technologies and allow existing ones to greatly improve At least a decade away, probably much more Both hardware and software require a great deal of time and effort to develop

Questions?