Single Atom Transistor Demolishes Moore's Law

In 1965 Gordon E. Moore coined ‘Moore’s Law’ in what proved to be an amazing bout of prognostication. His law stated that the number of components on a semiconducting circuit would double every year. He originally expected his formulation to hold for around 10 years, but it has been nearly constant for most of the history of computing since. That, however, is changing.

We’ve been approaching the edges of what it is possible to achieve with our technology for years, exploiting more and more clever workarounds to keep boosting speed. But you can only shrink a circuit so small before electrons start jumping from one circuit to the other. Which is why it is expected that we will start lagging behind Moore’s Law starting in 2013.

The problem is that silicon circuit elements can only be so small, due to their design. But a new breakthrough could destroy Moore’s Law.

An international research team has managed to design and build a single-atom transistor, the basic element of any processor. Which means that not only will we be able to keep up with Moore’s Law, we’ll be able to soundly best it. This tech isn’t just about improving what we already have, but about building the future. Says Michelle Simmons, leader of the team:

"This is a beautiful demonstration of controlling matter at the atomic scale to make a real device. Fifty years ago when the first transistor was developed, no one could have predicted the role that computers would play in our society today. As we transition to atomic-scale devices, we are now entering a new paradigm where quantum mechanics promises a similar technological disruption. It is the promise of this future technology that makes this present development so exciting."

There are still some challenges to be overcome before this kind of tech can make it into daily use. The largest, probably, is that the transistor only functions when it is very cold, at -196 C (-296 F). And this is probably a hard limit, because of how electrons function. "The atom sits in a well or channel, and for it to operate as a transistor the electrons must stay in that channel," said Gerhard Klimeck, of the Purdue group that ran the simulations. "At higher temperatures, the electrons move more and go outside of the channel. For this atom to act like a metal you have to contain the electrons to the channel.

Of course, we’ve seen previously impossible things become possible before. "If someone develops a technique to contain the electrons, this technique could be used to build a computer that would work at room temperature. But this is a fundamental question for this technology."

This is still far from a working processor, however. While the team has managed to place a single atom transistor with atomic precision, they still haven’t managed to build several next to each other, the key for a computer processor. Until they manage to do so, this technology will remain tantalizingly out of reach. But it does signal that, when we finally do hit the wall of our current silicon based photo-etching, we will have somewhere to go.

ScienceDaily Photo by : Purdue University