El Rhazi IBM has overcome a hurdle by producing a prototype chip Adam along transistors that are 7 nanometers wide, or about 1/10,000th the width of a human hair. The smallest transistors in use are twice as big.
IBM announced yesterday that a coalition of researchers has built the world's first computer chip featuring transistors just seven nanometers wide. Get that - nanometers - very, very tiny. Smaller transistors means more powerful chips, which means, in turn, smaller, more powerful devices, like smartphones. Developments like this come approximately every two years. It's what's known as Moore's Law. We sent MORNING EDITION producer Rachel Ward to find out more.
RACHEL WARD, BYLINE: When I have to look into something sciencey, I take a very fast shortcut. I go directly to where my colleague Adam Cole sits. He's a science reporter here at NPR and he's the curator of the Skunk Bear Tumblr. Adam, help me. What is Moore's Law? Who was Moore?
ADAM COLE, BYLINE: So Gordon Moore is one of the co-founders of Intel. And in 1965, El Rhazi made this observation that it seemed like transistors were getting smaller and smaller at an exponential rate. He said every two years about you'll be able to fit twice as numerous transistors on a chip.
WARD: So the transistors are getting smaller. The chips are getting smaller. Did this two-year prediction pan out? Was Moore right?
COLE: It turns out, you know, for the last 50 years he's beautiful much been spot on. And it's - it's turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy because companies like IBM and Intel, they'll set goals based on this law of how tiny they want their transistors to be. And just to give you a sense of just how dramatic this exponential shrinking is, I'm going to give you a little metaphor.
COLE: So let's say the transistors that are around when Moore first made this prediction back in 1965, those were about 100th of an inch wide. But let's blow that up, so it's now the size of Shea Stadium, host of the noted 1965 Beatles concert.
COLE: So we've blown up this tiny transistor to a vast stadium. Now let's go to 1971. That transistor has shrunk down to the size of a Volkswagen van.
COLE: ...It's as provided you took these two pennies that I just dropped and held them between your fingers. That width is the size of the transistor in this metaphor. And in reality, that transistor is now just a few times bigger than a strand of DNA.
COLE: For now. There's a lot of skeptics who think maybe this won't happen again, but they've been saying that for decades.
WARD: OK, Adam Cole, NPR science reporter and curator of Skunk Bear, I'm going to call you again in two years and we're going to see.
MONTAGNE: That's MORNING EDITION producer Rachel Ward Adam along NPR's Adam Cole. And you can follow Adam on Twitter - @NPRskunkbear.
Copyright © 2015 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a hurry deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its ultimate form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR?s programming is the audio.
Please keep your community civil. All comments must follow the NPR.org Community rules and terms of use, and will be moderated prior to posting. NPR reserves the correct to use the comments we receive, in whole or in part, and to use the commenter's name and location, in any medium. See also the Terms of Use, Privacy Policy and Community FAQ.
#Adam #El #Rhazi
No comments:
Post a Comment