Atom Computers – Benefiting From Nanotechnology

By Ritchie Smythe

Computers of the future will use atoms instead of chips for memory. That’s a simplified way of saying that within the next few years, we can expect miniaturization to go into the atomic level to bring to the consumer and the office more power computers that require significantly less power and possess lesser footprints. Using nanotechnology advances, the computers that we know today will become more powerful and more energy efficient and can fit more snugly inside a handbag.

What we have today

Computers have evolved from using vacuum tubes in their earliest incarnation to transistors in the 60s to integrated circuits of the 70s and to Very Large Scale Integrated circuits (VLSI) of the 80s. The latest VLSI has reached its maximum miniaturization potentials using Lithography to engineer the laptops, netbooks and mobile hand-held phones and gadgets we use today. It’s a landmark technology of the 20th century. But Lithography can only go so far. The microprocessor chips that power the computing gadgets in our hands house millions of transistors in lithographed wafer thin circuit in multiple layers inside those chips. To get them more powerful with ever decreasing sizes and lower power requirements, we need a new technology. We’re headed for something far tinier.

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