Wednesday, 7. October 2009, 08:55:27
particles, integrated circuit, Computer, electronics
The physicists at UC San Diego that a year ago created the first integrated circuit using particles called excitons, now have discovered a technique that allows for operation at commercially cold temperatures.
This brings the possibility of a new type of extremely fast computer based on excitons closer to reality. When commercialized, the technology could speed computing and communications by better integrating electronic circuits and optical data communications.
Leonid Butov, a professor of physics at UCSD, is leading the research team that previously demonstrated an integrated circuit capable of working at 1.5 degrees Kelvin above absolute zero, or minus 457 degrees Fahrenheit. That temperature is less than the average temperature of deep space (-454.67 F), and achievable only in special research laboratories.
But now, the scientists report that they succeeded in building an integrated circuit that operates at 125 degrees Kelvin (minus 234 degrees Fahrenheit), a temperature that can be “easily” attained commercially with liquid nitrogen, a substance that costs about as much per liter as gasoline. The discovery is detailed in the latest online issue of the journal Nature Photonics.
Source:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/?p=1793
Monday, 8. December 2008, 13:25:13
optics, photonics, chip technology, nanotechnology
...
Since the 1980s, researchers have used lasers to stop molecular vibrations, so that the molecules can be observed in their natural environment. Now researchers at Yale University have used the same kind of nanoscale optical force to control an integrated circuit. Their device could form the basis of fast, low-power optical chips, just as transistors are the building blocks of today's electronic circuits. The new device, a light-driven nanoresonator, could also be used as an extremely sensitive chemical detector. The work is a major landmark in uniting mechanical and optical forces at the nanoscale.
Chips that use light instead of electrons to carry data should be faster and consume less power than traditional integrated circuits. But so far even the fastest optical chips have incorporated electrical elements called modulators. These modulators encode light with data by converting the signal from light into electrons and back again. This extra step makes optical chips complex and drains power. A circuit developed by Yale researchers led by electrical-engineering professor Hong Tang incorporates a modulator that's driven by light, not electrons.
Source:
http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/21740/?a=f
Friday, 24. October 2008, 09:34:32
self-assembly, chip technology, computers, integrated circuit
...
A team of European physicists has developed an integrated circuit that can build itself. The work, appearing in this week's Nature1, is an important step towards its ultimate goal — a self-assembling computer.
Today's computer chips are made by etching patterns onto semiconducting wafers using a combination of light and photosensitive chemicals. But the technique is being pushed to the limit as ever more processing power is being packed onto chips, requiring engineers to etch details just a few tens of nanometres across.
So scientists are hunting for alternative ways to assemble even tinier chips.
To make a circuit that is truly self-assembling, physicists would need to get insulators, conducting electrodes and semiconductor transistors to all link to each other automatically — something that is still a long way away, says de Leeuw.
But his team has made an important step. They took a long organic molecule with mobile electrons, called quinquethiophene, that behaves like a semiconductor and attached it to a long carbon chain with a silicon group at the end, which acts an an anchor.
Source:
http://www.nature.com/news/2008/081015/full/news.2008.1171.html?s=news_rss
Thursday, 13. December 2007, 12:27:51
integrated circuit, phase array, chip technology, communications
Electrical engineers at the University of California in San Diego (UCSD) have developed the world’s most complex “phased array” – or radio frequency integrated circuit. Funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), this device is expected to find its way into U.S. defense satellite communication and radar systems.
It is likely that the innovations demonstrated in the chip's design will 'spill over' to commercial applications such as automotive satellite systems and new high speed wireless data transfer methods.
A phased array is a group of antennas that are fed by relative signals that are varied in a way that makes the radiation pattern of the array reinforced in a particular direction and suppressed in all other directions. By manipulating the phase, the antennas' beam can be steered electronically within nanoseconds. The width of the beam is controlled by the amplitude of the transmitted waves.
Source:
http://www.tfot.info/news/1057/micro-phased-array-for-rapid-data-transfer.html
WIDGETIZE