Technology  

When it comes to envisioning the technology that will rule our lives over the next few decades, the future is so small that we could easily misplace it or even fail to see it without a magnifying glass.

For every massively large technological advancement from Big Data to astronomy telescopes the size of office buildings, there are a handful of innovations that are too small for the human eye to acknowledge; nonetheless, these tiny technologies are shaping the future as we will come to know it. With all this in mind, here are three examples of how small things will be improving our lives very soon:

Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems

Remember how a few years ago you had to press a combination of keys in your smartphone to switch from the default portrait display to landscape mode? You no longer have to do that because an accelerometer detects the position angles of your mobile device and switches the display orientation accordingly. This is an example of a MEMS device, which are made with tiny printed circuit boards (PCBs) made by companies like Streamline Circuits, who specialize in laser printed circuits, plus some very small mechanical components. Distributed MEMS devices that collect kinetic energy from dance floors and sidewalks are already being used to generate electricity; combined with solar panels and batteries, these devices will be able to power streetlights without connecting them to the grid.

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Nanotube Transistors

Move over, silicon processors, carbon nanotube fabrication is here to bring in the new era of personal computing. You know how mini PCs are doing away with legacy tower desktops? The next step consists of turning smartwatches into full desktop computers with wireless connectivity that can stream multimedia data to monitors, keyboards and speakers. Carbon nanotube research is being spearheaded by IBM in the United States; this is keeping up with Moore's Law, which posits that microprocessors should be getting smaller and more powerful on an exponential basis.

The CubeSat Program

Tiny developing nations such as Costa Rica are jumping into the space race with the help of CubeSats, mini satellites that can be as small as four inches while still being able to pack an array of sensors, processors and transmitters for the purpose of conduct space research. These miniature space instruments can perform a variety of experiments in orbit, and are already being considered for a Mars mission.

In the end, the three innovations listed herein prove that big things do come in very small packages when technology is involved.

By  Brooke Chaplan	Embed
Author Bio - 33rd Square contributor Brooke Chaplan is recent graduate of New Mexico University where she studied journalism. She loves to hike, bike, run and explore around her home in Los Lunas, New Mexico. She also enjoys blogging about health, fitness, fashion and many other topics.

Carbon Nanotubes  

Researchers are developing a new generation of computers with processors based on carbon nanotubes or CNTs. CNT processors and memory stacked in layers on chips might put supercomputer power into a smartphone in the future.

With support from the National Science Foundation electrical engineer H.S. Philip Wong, and computer scientist, Subhasish Mitra, at Stanford University are working with IBM to develop a new generation of computers with processors made from tiny carbon nanotubes 50,000 times thinner than a human hair.

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In a few years carbon nanotube-based processors could begin to replace bulky silicon chips and bring Moore's Law into a new paradigm.

"Today we have incredible computing that has changed our lives," states Mitra, "But to be able to do more so we need massive amount of performance. For example what today runs on a supercomputer, we should be able to run on a cell phone."

So far the researchers carbon nanotube chip has rather modest functionality. It runs a robotic arm that shakes hands. But this was a big advance, years in the making. The Stanford team had to overcome some big design and device fabrication hurdles to get this far.

Even though it may be the perfect material to make the perfect transistor, the engineering challenge of producing carbon nanotubes on a large scale with billions and billions of transistors on the same chip or even in multiple layers of the chip is a great challenge.

Developing a multi-layered chip carbon nanotube transistors and memory devices stacked one on top of the other is the ultimate aim for the researchers.

According to Wong, "Today silicon chips are two-dimensional, just like in a landscape you have
houses and then your street and so on, what do people in big cities do? They build high-rises."

"The fact of the matter is, if you don't work on it, if you don't put effort into it, this is not going to happen."

Today, much of our global economy runs on the expectation that computers will continue to get faster
devices smaller and costs will keep going down. "The fact of the matter is, if you don't work on it, if you don't put effort into it, this is not going to happen," states Wong.

Wong sees this high-rise architecture as a gateway to vast improvements in computing speed and performance. "You can look forward into the future I would say you ain't seen nothing yet!"

SOURCE  Stanford University

By  33rd Square

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Electronics  

We take them for granted—the microscopic, and soon to be nanoscopic, circuitry that makes our electronic and digital lives possible.The advancement of the electronic circuit has taken the average computer from being the size of a house to small enough to hold in the palm of your hand.

Electronics technology has taken a leap forward in the last few decades, and the pace of this advancement continues to accelerate. In a world that is now almost entirely reliant on computers and electronic communication technology, it can be easy to forget about or dismiss the microscopic, and soon to be nanoscopic, circuitry that makes it all possible. It is the advancement of the circuit that has taken the average computer from being the size of a house to small enough to hold in the palm of your hand.

The Role of a Circuit

All computers and most types of electronic systems function based on a surprisingly simple “on” or “off” principle. The function of a circuit in any electronic device is to provide this on or off switch that regulates the amount of power flowing through the device. More advanced computing power simply uses a greater number of circuit switches to provide greater complexity. The key advancement in computer technology in the last century has been to make this simple technological concept increasingly smaller and more efficient. Two basic principles stand out in the development of circuit and thus computer chip technology. The more circuits you can put into a smaller space, the more powerful, smaller and lighter the resulting machine will be. At the same time the faster and cheaper you can produce those circuit boards, the less expensive the end-product will become. Advances in both these principles are the cornerstone of our technological age.

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The Microchip

One of the most significant advances in circuit technology is the microchip. A microchip is a tiny wafer of semi-conductive material, usually silicon derived from ultra-refined sand, upon which microscopic circuits can be etched to create an integrated circuit. The full process of creating a microchip is complex, but the result makes modern computers possible. This etched circuit technology uses computer designs and light to create circuits in the microscale.

The Printed Circuit Board

Originally, circuit boards were time consuming and difficult to construct. They involved large and bulky materials that usually had to be assembled by hand. They were prone to impurities and failures that hampered their functionality. Some companies, like Streamline Circuits, know that the printed circuit board, or PCB, was a breakthrough the circuit manufacturing process that allowed the circuit material to be “printed” onto a board of nonconductive material like fiberglass. The printed material is usually metallic “ink” based on copper that creates the conductive pathways. The PCB can be easily custom designed using computers and rapidly assembled to very precise specifications. This process, when combined with other circuit advances, is what makes most technology affordable for the average consumer today.

Carbon Nanotube Circuits

There is a fear among modern technology manufactures that the standard silicon circuit may be reaching its apex. A stall in circuit technology means a halt to electronics advancement. The cutting edge of circuit design now involves hybrid chips that include carbon nanotubes in the traditional silicon structure. This allows the circuit to function with much greater speed, so that less circuits are needed to provide the same power. This increase in efficiency is predicted to make up for the inability to add more circuits to future computer chips.

Electronics technology continues to advance rapidly. As long as our technology is based on the flow of electrons through conductors, the circuit will continue to play a vital role in our everyday life.

By  Rachelle Wilber

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Carbon Nanotubes  

Researchers have developed scalable and rapid deposition process to coat substrate surfaces with aligned carbon nanotubes. The results could lead to advances like in longer battery life, faster wireless communication and faster processing speeds for devices like smartphones and laptops.

For the first time, materials engineers have created carbon nanotube transistors that outperform state-of-the-art silicon transistors.

University of Wisconsin–Madison material scientists Michael Arnold and Padma Gopalan, created carbon nanotube transistors achieved current that’s 1.9 times higher than silicon transistors. The researchers reported their breaktrough in a paper published in the journal Science Advances.

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“This achievement has been a dream of nanotechnology for the last 20 years,” says Arnold. “Making carbon nanotube transistors that are better than silicon transistors is a big milestone. This breakthrough in carbon nanotube transistor performance is a critical advance toward exploiting carbon nanotubes in logic, high-speed communications, and other semiconductor electronics technologies.”

This development could open the door for carbon nanotube transistors to replace silicon transistors and continue delivering the performance gains the computer industry relies on and that consumers demand. The new transistors are particularly promising for wireless communications technologies that require a lot of current flowing across a relatively small area.

Carbon nanotubes have long been recognized as a promising material for next-generation transistors and are some of the best electrical conductors ever discovered,.

Carbon nanotube transistors should be able to perform five times faster or use five times less energy than silicon transistors, according to extrapolations from single nanotube measurements. The nanotube’s ultra-small dimension makes it possible to rapidly change a current signal traveling across it, which could lead to substantial gains in the bandwidth of wireless communications devices.

Material scientists have struggled to isolate purely carbon nanotubes, which are crucial, because metallic nanotube impurities act like copper wires and disrupt their semiconducting properties — like a short in an electronic device.

The UW–Madison team used polymers to selectively sort out the semiconducting nanotubes, achieving a solution of ultra-high-purity semiconducting carbon nanotubes.

"There has been a lot of hype about carbon nanotubes that hasn’t been realized, and that has kind of soured many people’s outlook. But we think the hype is deserved."

“We’ve identified specific conditions in which you can get rid of nearly all metallic nanotubes, where we have less than 0.01 percent metallic nanotubes,” says Arnold. Placing and aligning the nanotubes is also difficult to control.

To make a good transistor, the nanotubes need to be aligned in just the right order, with just the right spacing, when assembled on a wafer. In 2014, the UW–Madison researchers overcame that challenge when they announced a technique, called “floating evaporative self-assembly,” that gives them this control.

The nanotubes must make good electrical contacts with the metal electrodes of the transistor. Because the polymer the UW–Madison researchers use to isolate the semiconducting nanotubes also acts like an insulating layer between the nanotubes and the electrodes, the team “baked” the nanotube arrays in a vacuum oven to remove the insulating layer. The result: excellent electrical contacts to the nanotubes.

The researchers also developed a treatment that removes residues from the nanotubes after they’re processed in solution.

“In our research, we’ve shown that we can simultaneously overcome all of these challenges of working with nanotubes, and that has allowed us to create these groundbreaking carbon nanotube transistors that surpass silicon and gallium arsenide transistors,” says Arnold.

Arnold says it’s exciting to finally reach the point where researchers can exploit the nanotubes to attain performance gains in actual technologies.

“There has been a lot of hype about carbon nanotubes that hasn’t been realized, and that has kind of soured many people’s outlook,” says Arnold. “But we think the hype is deserved. It has just taken decades of work for the materials science to catch up and allow us to effectively harness these materials.”

SOURCE  University of Wisconsin–Madison

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Nanotechnology  

Scientists at Rice University have discovered that the strong force field emitted by a Tesla coil causes carbon nanotubes to self-assemble into long wires, a phenomenon they call 'Teslaphoresis.'

Researchers at Rice University have discovered that the strong force field emitted by a Tesla coil causes carbon nanotubes to self-assemble into long wires, a phenomenon they call 'Teslaphoresis.'

The team led by Rice chemist Paul Cherukuri created a system that works by remotely oscillating positive and negative charges in each nanotube, causing them to chain together into long wires.

Cherukuri’s specially designed Tesla coil even generates a tractor beam-like effect as nanotube wires are pulled toward the coil over long distances. The research results have been published in the journal ACS Nano.

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Conventional directed self-assembly of matter using electric fields has been restricted to small scale structures, but with Teslaphoresis, the researchers exceeded this limitation by using the Tesla coil’s antenna to create a gradient high-voltage force field that projects into free space.

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) placed within the Teslaphoretic (TEP) field polarized and self-assembled into wires that ranged in size from the nanoscale to the macroscale, the longest thus far being 15 cm. The researchers showed that the TEP field not only directed the self-assembly of long nanotube wires at remote distances (>30 cm) but could also wirelessly power nanotube-based LED circuits.
They also found that individualized CNTs self-organize to form long parallel arrays with high fidelity alignment to the TEP field. Teslaphoresis could be an effective tool for directed self-assembly from the bottom-up to the macroscale based on this work.

This force-field effect on matter had never been observed on such a large scale, Cherukuri said, and the phenomenon was unknown to Nikola Tesla, who invented the coil in 1891 with the intention of delivering wireless electrical energy.

"With Teslaphoresis, we have the ability to massively scale up force fields to move matter remotely"

“Electric fields have been used to move small objects, but only over ultrashort distances,” Cherukuri said. “With Teslaphoresis, we have the ability to massively scale up force fields to move matter remotely.”

The researchers discovered that the phenomenon simultaneously assembles and powers circuits that harvest energy from the field. In one experiment, nanotubes assembled themselves into wires, formed a circuit connecting two LEDs and then absorbed energy from the Tesla coil’s field to light them.

Cherukuri realized a redesigned Tesla coil could create a powerful force field at distances far greater than anyone imagined. His team observed alignment and movement of the nanotubes several feet away from the coil. “It is such a stunning thing to watch these nanotubes come alive and stitch themselves into wires on the other side of the room,” he said.

Lindsey Bornhoeft, the paper’s lead author and a biomedical engineering graduate student at Texas A&M University, said the directed force field from the bench-top coil at Rice is restricted to just a few feet. To examine the effects on matter at greater distances would require larger systems that are under development. Cherukuri suggested patterned surfaces and multiple Tesla coil systems could create more complex self-assembling circuits from nanoscale-sized particles.

“There are so many applications where one could utilize strong force fields to control the behavior of matter in both biological and artificial systems,” Cherukuri said. “And even more exciting is how much fundamental physics and chemistry we are discovering as we move along. This really is just the first act in an amazing story.” 

SOURCE  Rice University

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 Computers  

Researchers have build 3D “high-rise” chips that could leapfrog the performance of the single-story logic and memory chips on today’s circuit cards, which are subject to frequent traffic jams between logic and memory.

Researchers at Stanford University have built a new multi-layered "high-rise" chip that could significantly outperform traditional computer chips, taking on the hefty workloads that will be needed for the Internet of Things, Big Data and to continue the exponential trends in computation after Moore's Law.

By using nanotechnology, the new chips are built with layers of processing on top of layers of memory, greatly cutting down on the time and energy typically needed to move information from memory to processing and back.

Max Shulaker, a researcher on the project and a Ph.D candidate in Stanford's Department of Electrical Engineering, said they have built a four-layer chip but he could easily see them building a 100-layer chip if that was needed.

"The slowest part of any computer is sending information back and forth from the memory to the processor and back to the memory. That takes a lot of time and lot of energy," Shulaker told Computerworld. "If you look at where the new exciting apps are, it's with big data… For these sorts of new applications, we need to find a way to handle this big data."

The conventional separation of memory and logic is not well-suited for these types of heavy workloads. With traditional chip design, information is passed from the memory to the processor for computing, and then it goes back to the memory to be saved again.

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In relative terms, that takes a lot of energy and time – way more than the computation itself.

"People talk about the Internet of Things, where we're going to have millions and trillions of sensors beaming information all around," said Shulaker. "You can beam all the data to the cloud to organize all the data there, but that's a huge data deluge. You need [a chip] that can process on all this data… You want to make sense of this data before you send it off to the cloud."

That, he noted, would make working with the cloud, as well as with the Internet of Things, more efficient.

The new high-rise chip is based on three emerging technologies, according to Stanford.

The researchers, led by Subhasish Mitra, a Stanford associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science, and H.S. Philip Wong, a professor in Stanford's school of engineering, used carbon nanotube transistors instead of silicon and replaced typical memory with resistive random-access memory (RRAM) or spin-transfer torque magnetic random-access memory (STT-RAM). Both use less power and are more efficient than traditional memory systems.

"For all of these Internet of Things applications, all of them would run much, much more efficiently and much, much faster. For way less energy, you'd be able to do way more work."

The third new technique is to build the logic and memory technologies in layers that sit on top of each other in what scientists describe as "high-rise" structures.

"The connectivity between the layers increases by three orders of magnitude or a thousand times the benefit in bandwidth of how much data you can move back and forth," Shulaker said. "For all of these Internet of Things applications, all of them would run much, much more efficiently and much, much faster. For way less energy, you'd be able to do way more work."

Shulaker said they've built four-layer chips but could build many more layers. Now they're trying to figure out what size structure gives the most benefit for the cost of the build.

“This research is at an early stage, but our design and fabrication techniques are scalable,” Mitra said. “With further development this architecture could lead to computing performance that is much, much greater than anything available today.” Wong said the prototype chip unveiled at the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting shows how to put logic and memory together into three-dimensional structures that can be mass-produced.

The researchers also said the chips could be built in a traditional chip fabrication plant without much retooling. Shulaker declined to say what kind of interest the researchers are receiving from commercial computer chip manufacturers but did say they are collaborating with industry.


SOURCE  Computer World

By 33rd Square

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 Graphene  

Researchers have created a supercapacitor film that could replace the need for a battery altogether within the next five years. Consisting of two layers of graphene with an electrolyte layer in the middle the supercapacitor is strong, thin, and is able to release a large amount of energy in a short amount of time.

Cars powered by their own body panels could soon be driving on our roads after a breakthrough in nanotechnology research by a Queensland University of Technology (QUT) team.

The researchers have developed lightweight "supercapacitors" that can be combined with regular batteries to dramatically boost the power of an electric car.

The discovery was made by Postdoctoral Research Fellow Dr Jinzhang Liu, Professor Nunzio Motta and PhD researcher Marco Notarianni, from QUT's Science and Engineering Faculty - Institute for Future Environments, and PhD researcher Francesca Mirri and Professor Matteo Pasquali, from Rice University in Houston, in the United States.

The supercapacitors which are made of a "sandwich" by solution processing and filtering electrochemically-exfoliated graphene sheets mixed with clusters of spontaneously entangled multiwall carbon nanotubes.

The film could be embedded in a car's body panels, roof, doors, hood and floor - storing enough energy to turbocharge an electric car's battery in just a few minutes.

The findings, published in the Journal of Power Sources and the Nanotechnology journal, mean a car partly powered by its own body panels could be a reality within five years, Notarianni said.

"Vehicles need an extra energy spurt for acceleration, and this is where supercapacitors come in. They hold a limited amount of charge, but they are able to deliver it very quickly, making them the perfect complement to mass-storage batteries," he said.

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"Supercapacitors offer a high power output in a short time, meaning a faster acceleration rate of the car and a charging time of just a few minutes, compared to several hours for a standard electric car battery."

"Supercapacitors offer a high power output in a short time, meaning a faster acceleration rate of the car and a charging time of just a few minutes, compared to several hours for a standard electric car battery."

Dr Liu said currently the "energy density" of a supercapacitor is lower than a standard lithium ion (Li-Ion) battery, but its "high power density", or ability to release power in a short time, is "far beyond" a conventional battery. "Supercapacitors are presently combined with standard Li-Ion batteries to power electric cars, with a substantial weight reduction and increase in performance," he said.

"In the future, it is hoped the supercapacitor will be developed to store more energy than a Li-Ion battery while retaining the ability to release its energy up to 10 times faster - meaning the car could be entirely powered by the supercapacitors in its body panels.

"After one full charge this car should be able to run up to 500km - similar to a petrol-powered car and more than double the current limit of an electric car."

Dr Liu said the technology would also potentially be used for rapid charges of other battery-powered devices. "For example, by putting the film on the back of a smart phone to charge it extremely quickly," he said.

The discovery may be a game-changer for the automotive industry, with significant impacts on financial, as well as environmental, factors. "We are using cheap carbon materials to make supercapacitors and the price of industry scale production will be low," Professor Motta said.

"The price of Li-Ion batteries cannot decrease a lot because the price of Lithium remains high. This technique does not rely on metals and other toxic materials either, so it is environmentally friendly if it needs to be disposed of."

The researchers are part of QUT's Battery Interest Group, a cross-faculty group that aims to engage industry with battery-related research.


SOURCE  Queensland University of Technology

By 33rd Square

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 Brain Imaging  

A team of scientists has developed an entirely non-invasive technique that provides a view of blood flow in the brain. The tool could provide powerful insights into strokes and possibly Alzheimer's disease.

Some of the most damaging brain diseases can be traced to irregular blood delivery in the brain. Now, Stanford University chemists have employed lasers and carbon nanotubes to capture an unprecedented look at blood flowing through a living brain.

The technique was developed for mice but could one day be applied to humans, potentially providing vital information in the study of stroke and migraines, and perhaps even Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. The work is described in the journal Nature Photonics.

Current procedures for exploring the brain in living animals face significant trade-offs. Surgically removing part of the skull offers a clear view of activity at the cellular level. But the trauma can alter the function or activity of the brain or even stimulate an immune response. Meanwhile, non-invasive techniques such as CT scans or MRI visualize function best at the whole-organ level; they cannot visualize individual vessels or groups of neurons.

The first step of the new technique, called near infrared-IIa imaging, or NIR-IIa, calls for injecting water-soluble carbon nanotubes into a live mouse's bloodstream. The researchers then shine a near-infrared laser over the rodent's skull.

"The NIR-IIa light can pass through intact scalp skin and skull and penetrate millimeters into the brain, allowing us to see vasculature in an almost non-invasive way."

The light causes the specially designed nanotubes to fluoresce at wavelengths of 1,300-1,400 nanometers; this range represents a sweet spot for optimal penetration with very little light scattering. The fluorescing nanotubes can then be detected to visualize the blood vessels' structure.

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Amazingly, the technique allows scientists to view about three millimeters underneath the scalp and is fine enough to visualize blood coursing through single capillaries only a few microns across, said senior author Hongjie Dai, a professor of chemistry at Stanford. Furthermore, it does not appear to have any adverse affect on innate brain functions.

"The NIR-IIa light can pass through intact scalp skin and skull and penetrate millimeters into the brain, allowing us to see vasculature in an almost non-invasive way," said first author Guosong Hong, who conducted the research as a graduate student in Dai's lab and is now a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard. "All we have to remove is some hair."

The technique could eventually be used in human clinical trials, Hong said, but will need to be tweaked. First, the light penetration depth needs to be increased to pass deep into the human brain. Second, injecting carbon nanotubes needs approval for clinical application; the scientists are currently investigating alternative fluorescent agents.

For now, though, the technique provides a new technique for studying human cerebral-vascular diseases, such as stroke and migraines, in animal models. Other research has shown that Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases might elicit – or be caused in part by – changes in blood flow to certain parts of the brain, Hong said, and NIR-IIa imaging might offer a means of better understanding the role of healthy vasculature in those diseases.

"We could also label different neuron types in the brain with bio-markers and use this to monitor how each neuron performs," Hong said. "Eventually, we might be able to use NIR-IIa to learn how each neuron functions inside of the brain."




SOURCE  Stanford

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 Moore's Law  

IBM has announced it is investing $3 billion for R&D in two research programs to push the limits of chip technology and extend Moore’s law. The research programs are aimed at “7 nanometer and beyond” silicon technology and developing alternative technologies for post-silicon-era chips using entirely different approaches.

IBM has announced it is investing $3 billion over the next 5 years in two broad research and early stage development programs to push the limits of chip technology needed to meet the emerging demands of cloud computing and Big Data systems. These investments will push IBM's semiconductor innovations from today’s breakthroughs into the advanced technology leadership required for the future.

The first research program is aimed at so-called “7 nanometer and beyond” silicon technology that will address serious physical challenges that are threatening current semiconductor scaling techniques and will impede the ability to manufacture such chips.

The second is focused on developing alternative technologies for post-silicon era chips using entirely different approaches, which IBM scientists and other experts say are required because of the physical limitations of silicon based semiconductors.

IBM will be investing significantly in emerging areas of research including carbon nanoelectronics, silicon photonics, new memory technologies, and architectures that support quantum and cognitive computing.

"The question is not if we will introduce 7 nanometer technology into manufacturing, but rather how, when, and at what cost?"

These teams will focus on providing orders of magnitude improvement in system level performance and energy efficient computing. In addition, the company will continue to invest in the nanosciences and quantum computing--two areas of fundamental science where IBM has remained a pioneer for over three decades.

IBM Researchers and other semiconductor experts predict that while challenging, semiconductors show promise to scale from today's 22 nanometers down to 14 and then 10 nanometers in the next several years.  However, scaling to 7 nanometers and perhaps below, by the end of the decade will require significant investment and innovation in semiconductor architectures as well as invention of new tools and techniques for manufacturing.

"The question is not if we will introduce 7 nanometer technology into manufacturing, but rather how, when, and at what cost?" said John Kelly, senior vice president, IBM Research. "IBM engineers and scientists, along with our partners, are well suited for this challenge and are already working on the materials science and device engineering required to meet the demands of the emerging system requirements for cloud, big data, and cognitive systems. This new investment will ensure that we produce the necessary innovations to meet these challenges."

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Silicon transistors, tiny switches that carry information on a chip, have been made smaller year after year, but they are approaching a point of physical limitation. Their increasingly small dimensions, now reaching the nanoscale, will prohibit any gains in performance due to the nature of silicon and the laws of physics. Within a few more generations, classical scaling and shrinkage will no longer yield the sizable benefits of lower power, lower cost and higher speed processors that the industry has become accustomed to.

With virtually all electronic equipment today built on complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technology, there is an urgent need for new materials and circuit architecture designs compatible with this engineering process as the technology industry nears physical scaling limits of the silicon transistor.

Beyond 7 nanometers, the challenges dramatically increase, requiring a new kind of material to power systems of the future, and new computing platforms to solve problems that are unsolvable or difficult to solve today. Potential alternatives include new materials such as carbon nanotubes, and non-traditional computational approaches such as neuromorphic computing, cognitive computing, machine learning techniques, and the science behind quantum computing.

IBM already holds over 500 patents for technologies that will drive advancements at 7nm and beyond silicon -- more than twice the nearest competitor. These continued investments will accelerate the invention and introduction into product development for IBM's highly differentiated computing systems for cloud, and big data analytics.

Quantum Computing

The most basic piece of information that a typical computer understands is a bit. Much like a light that can be switched on or off, a bit can have only one of two values: "1" or "0.” Described as superposition, this special property of qubits enables quantum computers to weed through millions of solutions all at once, while desktop PCs would have to consider them one at a time.

IBM is a world leader in superconducting qubit-based quantum computing science and is a pioneer in the field of experimental and theoretical quantum information, fields that are still in the category of fundamental science - but one that, in the long term, may allow the solution of problems that are today either impossible or impractical to solve using conventional machines. The team recently demonstrated the first experimental realization of parity check with three superconducting qubits, an essential building block for one type of quantum computer.

Neurosynaptic Computing

Bringing together nanoscience, neuroscience, and supercomputing, IBM and university partners have developed an end-to-end ecosystem including a novel non-von Neumann architecture, a new programming language, as well as applications. This novel technology allows for computing systems that emulate the brain's computing efficiency, size and power usage. IBM’s long-term goal is to build a neurosynaptic system with ten billion neurons and a hundred trillion synapses, all while consuming only one kilowatt of power and occupying less than two liters of volume.

Silicon Photonics

IBM has been a pioneer in the area of CMOS integrated silicon photonics for over 12 years, a technology that integrates functions for optical communications on a silicon chip, and the IBM team has recently designed and fabricated the world's first monolithic silicon photonics based transceiver with wavelength division multiplexing.  Such transceivers will use light to transmit data between different components in a computing system at high data rates, low cost, and in an energetically efficient manner.
Silicon nanophotonics takes advantage of pulses of light for communication rather than traditional copper wiring and provides a super highway for large volumes of data to move at rapid speeds between computer chips in servers, large datacenters, and supercomputers, thus alleviating the limitations of congested data traffic and high-cost traditional interconnects.

Businesses are entering a new era of computing that requires systems to process and analyze, in real-time, huge volumes of information known as Big Data. Silicon nanophotonics technology provides answers to Big Data challenges by seamlessly connecting various parts of large systems, whether few centimeters or few kilometers apart from each other, and move terabytes of data via pulses of light through optical fibers.
III-V technologies
IBM researchers have demonstrated the world’s highest transconductance on a self-aligned III-V channel metal-oxide semiconductor (MOS) field-effect transistors (FETs) device structure that is compatible with CMOS scaling. These materials and structural innovation are expected to pave path for technology scaling at 7nm and beyond.  With more than an order of magnitude higher electron mobility than silicon, integrating III-V materials into CMOS enables higher performance at lower power density, allowing for an extension to power/performance scaling to meet the demands of cloud computing and big data systems.

Carbon Nanotubes

IBM Researchers are working in the area of carbon nanotube (CNT) electronics and exploring whether CNTs can replace silicon beyond the 7 nm node.  As part of its activities for developing carbon nanotube based CMOS VLSI circuits, IBM recently demonstrated -- for the first time in the world -- 2-way CMOS NAND gates using 50 nm gate length carbon nanotube transistors.

IBM also has demonstrated the capability for purifying carbon nanotubes to 99.99 percent, the highest (verified) purities demonstrated to date, and transistors at 10 nm channel length that show no degradation due to scaling--this is unmatched by any other material system to date.

Carbon nanotubes are single atomic sheets of carbon rolled up into a tube. The carbon nanotubes form the core of a transistor device that will work in a fashion similar to the current silicon transistor, but will be better performing. They could be used to replace the transistors in chips that power data-crunching servers, high performing computers and ultra fast smart phones.

Carbon nanotube transistors can operate as excellent switches at molecular dimensions of less than ten nanometers – the equivalent to 10,000 times thinner than a strand of human hair and less than half the size of the leading silicon technology. Comprehensive modeling of the electronic circuits suggests that about a five to ten times improvement in performance compared to silicon circuits is possible.

Graphene

Graphene is pure carbon in the form of a one atomic layer thick sheet.  It is an excellent conductor of heat and electricity, and it is also remarkably strong and flexible.  Electrons can move in graphene about ten times faster than in commonly used semiconductor materials such as silicon and silicon germanium. Its characteristics offer the possibility to build faster switching transistors than are possible with conventional semiconductors, particularly for applications in the handheld wireless communications business where it will be a more efficient switch than those currently used.
Recently in 2013, IBM demonstrated the world's first graphene based integrated circuit receiver front end for wireless communications. The circuit consisted of a 2-stage amplifier and a down converter operating at 4.3 GHz.

Next Generation Low Power Transistors

In addition to new materials like CNTs, new architectures and innovative device concepts are required to boost future system performance. Power dissipation is a fundamental challenge for nanoelectronic circuits.

A potential alternative to today’s power hungry silicon field effect transistors are so-called steep slope devices. They could operate at much lower voltage and thus dissipate significantly less power. IBM scientists are researching tunnel field effect transistors (TFETs). In this special type of transistors the quantum-mechanical effect of band-to-band tunneling is used to drive the current flow through the transistor. TFETs could achieve a 100-fold power reduction over complementary CMOS transistors, so integrating TFETs with CMOS technology could improve low-power integrated circuits.

Recently, IBM has developed a novel method to integrate III-V nanowires and heterostructures directly on standard silicon substrates and built the first ever InAs/Si tunnel diodes and TFETs using InAs as source and Si as channel with wrap-around gate as steep slope device for low power consumption applications.

"In the next ten years computing hardware systems will be fundamentally different as our scientists and engineers push the limits of semiconductor innovations to explore the post-silicon future," said Tom Rosamilia, senior vice president, IBM Systems and Technology Group. "IBM Research and Development teams are creating breakthrough innovations that will fuel the next era of computing systems."

SOURCE  IBM

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 Solar Cells  

Researchers have discovered that the controlled placement of carbon nanotubes in nanostructures could result in a huge boost in electronic performance in photovoltaic solar cells.

Carbon nanotubes are becoming increasingly attractive for photovoltaic solar cells as a replacement to silicon. Researchers at Umeå University in Sweden have discovered that controlled placement of the carbon nanotubes into nano-structures produces a huge boost in electronic performance. Their groundbreaking results are published in the journal Advanced Materials.

"We have found that the resulting nano networks possess exceptional ability to transport charges, up to 100 million times higher than previously measured carbon nanotube random networks produced by conventional methods."

Carbon nanotubes, or CNTs, are one dimensional nanoscale cylinders made of carbon atoms that possess very unique properties.  For example, they have very high tensile strength and exceptional electron mobility, which make them very attractive for the next generation of organic and carbon-based electronic devices.

There is an increasing trend of using carbon based nanostructured materials as components in solar cells. Due to their exceptional properties, carbon nanotubes are expected to enhance the performance of current photovoltaic solar cells through efficient charge transport inside the device.

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In order to obtain the highest performance for electronic applications, the carbon nanotubes must be assembled into a well-ordered network of interconnecting nanotubes. Unfortunately, conventional methods used today are far from optimal which results in low device performance.

In a new study, a team of physicists and chemists at Umeå University have joined forces to produce nano-engineered carbon nanotubes networks with novel properties.

For the first time, the researchers show that carbon nanotubes can be engineered into complex network architectures, and with controlled nano-scale dimensions inside a polymer matrix.
 “We have found that the resulting nano networks possess exceptional ability to transport charges, up to 100 million times higher than previously measured carbon nanotube random networks produced by conventional methods,” says Dr David Barbero, leader of the project and assistant professor at the Department of Physics at Umeå University.

“This new architecture enables a higher degree of interconnection between nanotubes and more robust charge transport pathways in the device,” Barbero told KurzweilAI. “This is expected to increase device efficiency, but also to reduce materials costs because at least 100 times less nanotubes are necessary to form efficient charge transport networks.”

Barbero could not predict when this new technology might go into production, but hinted that “this field is moving fast and things can happen quickly, so stay tuned.”


SOURCE  Umeå University

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 Nanotechnology  

Stanford engineers have developed an improved process for making flexible circuits that use carbon nanotube transistors, a development that paves the way for a new generation of bendable electronic devices.

Engineers would love to create flexible electronic devices, such as e-readers that could be folded to fit into a pocket. One approach they are trying involves designing circuits based on electronic fibers, known as carbon nanotubes, instead of rigid silicon chips.

But reliability is essential. Most silicon chips are based on a type of circuit design that allows them to function flawlessly even when the device experiences power fluctuations. However, it is much more challenging to do so with carbon nanotube circuits (CNT's).

Now a team at Stanford University has developed a process to create flexible chips that can tolerate power fluctuations in much the same way as silicon circuitry.

"This is the first time anyone has designed a flexible CNT circuits that have both high immunity to electrical noise and low power consumption, " said Zhenan Bao, a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford with a courtesy appointment in Chemistry and Materials Science and Engineering.

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The group reported its findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Huiliang (Evan) Wang, a graduate student in Bao's lab, and Peng Wei, a previous postdoc in Bao's lab, were the lead authors of the paper. Bao's team also included Yi Cui, an associate professor of materials science at Stanford, and Hye Ryoung Lee, a graduate student in his lab.

In principle, CNTs should be ideal for making flexible electronic circuitry. These ultra thin carbon filaments have the physical strength to take the wear and tear of bending, and the electrical conductivity to perform any electronic task.

But until this recent work from the Stanford team, flexible CNTs circuits didn't have the reliability and power-efficiency of rigid silicon chips.

Here's the reason. Over time, engineers have discovered that electricity can travel through semiconductors in two different ways. It can jump from positive hole to positive hole, or it can push through a bunch of negative electronic like a beaded necklace. The first type of semiconductor is called a P-type, the second is called and N-type.

Most importantly, engineers discovered that circuits based on a combination of P-type and N-type transistors perform reliably even when power fluctuations occur, and they also consume much less power. This type of circuit with both P-type and N-type transistors is called complementary circuit. Over the last 50 years engineers have become adept at creating this ideal blend of conductive pathways by changing the atomic structure of silicon through the addition of minute amounts of useful substances – a process called "doping" that is conceptually akin to what our ancestors did thousands of years ago when they stirred tin into molten copper to create bronze.

The challenge facing the Stanford team was that CNTs are predominately P-type semiconductors and there was no easy way to dope these carbon filaments to add N-type characteristics.

The PNAS paper explains how the Stanford engineers overcame this challenge. They treated CNTs with a chemical dopant they developed known as DMBI, and they used an inkjet printer to deposit this substance in precise locations on the circuit.

This marked the first time any flexible CNT circuit has been doped to create a P-N blend that can operate reliably despite power fluctuations and with low power consumption.

"This is the first time anyone has designed a flexible carbon nanotube circuits that have both high immunity to electrical noise and low power consumption."

The Stanford process also has some potential application to rigid CNTs. Although other engineers have previously doped rigid CNTs to create this immunity to electrical noise, the precise and finely tuned Stanford process out performs these prior efforts, suggesting that it could be useful for both flexible and rigid CNT circuitry.

Bao has focused her research on flexible CNTs, which compete with other experimental materials, such as specially formulated plastics, to become the foundation for bendable electronics, just as silicon has been the basis for rigid electronics.

As a relatively new material, CNTs are playing catch up to plastics, which are closer to mass market use for such things as bendable display screens. The Stanford doping process moves flexible CNTs closer toward commercialization because it shows how to create the P-N blend, and the resultant improvements in reliability and power consumption, already present in plastic circuits.

Although much work lies ahead to make CNTs commercial, Bao believes these carbon filaments are the future of flexible electronics, because they are strong enough to bend and stretch, while also being capable of delivering faster performance than plastic circuitry.

"CNTs offer the best long term electronic and physical attributes," Bao said.



SOURCE  Stanford University via EurekAlert

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