Pulses of light are activated through gates within the core of the processor. High-end CPUs can process information in mere 5 gigahertz while these ultrafast pulses of light are able to process information in petahertz, which is a million times faster! Now consider multiple gates firing at the same time they almost mirror how a regular computer chip processes data. The light gates operate in the femtosecond region, a millionth of a billionth of a second. An amazing invention has been produced where light is produced from a light gate and able to push electrons through a conductive material once in contact with the surface. ![]() This is exactly what researchers at the University of Rochester and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg have thought about and developed. What if we didn’t rely on electrons to process our computers? What about photons? Light photons are unable to tunnel through material, however, they still motivate electron movement to produce electricity such as in solar panels. Courtesy of Physics StackExchange Recent Improvements This is a big issue as we are nearing 4 nm processors which are alarmingly close to the upper limit for the tunneling effect to take place. ![]() ![]() Hence, transistors are inherently vulnerable to this effect where they have a probability of failing. As transistors get smaller in size, the nonconductive separators also have to get thinner. As the processors rely on electrons to move through metal connectors and non-conductive material to separate them, this phenomenon limits the transistors. That being said, as the barriers are thinned to 1-3 nm thickness level, these electrons pass through non-conductive material, jumping from one conductive surface to another through the barrier itself. Hence, they are unable to pass through barriers without sufficient energy. Typically, electrons will only flow when energy is applied and there is a conductive path they can follow. Moore himself said that “we’re pushing up against some fairly fundamental limits, so one of these days we’re going to have to stop making things smaller.” What Moore is referring to is quantum tunneling. Decreasing the size of transistors will inevitably be the choice among chip manufacturing companies in order to create a more effective CPU than competitors. This, however, does have its own limitations. An alternate choice is to decrease the physical size of the individual transistors. Increasing the density might result in more power consumption and larger sized computers. One method is to increase the number of transistors, which increases the area of the CPU itself. There are two options for making these CPUs quicker and more efficient. But for how long can we keep doubling the count of transistors to make processes faster? This article will cover that exact question. ![]() Every year since then, the transistor count nearly doubled every two years. This is now known as “Moore’s Law”, and so far has held true. In 1965, Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel, said that transistor count within CPUs will double every two years. As these transistors get smaller, more of them can be packed in the same space to make the process faster and more efficient. You might have heard the term nanometer architecture to describe the size of the transistors inside the unit. These processing chips, also called central processing units (CPU), essentially take input from different components and then execute a set of commands to various components. Processors are located everywhere from your computer to your new coffee maker, these chips are vital to your daily needs.
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