NANOCHIP – 21092
Researchers are always striving to get more “computer power” into less physical space. This means superminiaturization of electronic components. This is especially important to the development of artificial intelligence (AI).
There is a practical limit to how many logic gates or switches can be etched onto an integrated circuit (IC), or chip, of a given size. This limit depends on the precision of the manufacturing process.As methods have improved, the density of logic gates on a single chip has increased.However, this can go only so far.
It has been suggested that, rather than etching the logic gates into silicon to make computer chips, engineers might approach the problem from the opposite point of view. Is it possible to build chips atom by atom? This process would result in the greatest possible number of logic gates or switches in a given volume of space. A hypothetical chip of this sort has been called a nanochip, because the individual switches have dimensions on the order of a few nanometers. One nanometer (1 nm) is 0.000000001 meter (109 m), or a millionth of a millimeter.
