Carbon nanotubes have been touted as a replacement for silicon chip technology since their discovery in 1993. It’s been a long road but in Nature, September 26, a team from Stanford reported the first carbon nanotube computer.
Nanotube transistor arrays have been reported before, especially by IBM research in New York but this is a fully working computer. It comprises 178 nanotube transistors, each of which is made up of 10-200 nanotubes.
The current specification of the computer is charmingly off the pace. Running at I kHz, the machine takes us back to computing c. 1955. The question is: will it remain a curiosity or is the tentative start of something big?
Nanotube transistor arrays have been reported before, especially by IBM research in New York but this is a fully working computer. It comprises 178 nanotube transistors, each of which is made up of 10-200 nanotubes.
The current specification of the computer is charmingly off the pace. Running at I kHz, the machine takes us back to computing c. 1955. The question is: will it remain a curiosity or is the tentative start of something big?
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