Nanowire Processors

The article, reporting on nanowire developments, says "A programmable processor built from nanowires could lead to chips that are far more efficient than current CMOS processors."  According tyo Wikipedia,
"A nanowire is a nanostructure, with the diameter of the order of a nanometer (10⁻⁹ meters). Alternatively, nanowires can be defined as structures that have a thickness or diameter constrained to tens of nanometers or less and an unconstrained length. Many different types of nanowires exist, including metallic, semiconducting, and insulating are composed of repeating molecular units either organic inorganic."

This component then could be used to fabricate and link tiny components into really very small devices. The fabrication is simple so that manufacturers could get attracted and the power consumption is extremely low. A part of the reason is that the devices would be non volatile and would, thus hold the state even when power is taken off. Those are the things one would be looking for for the coming generations. The power consumption angle will be a powerful motivator for studying these devices closely! A Harvard research team is working on these structures and is led by Prof.Charles Lieber.

Nanowire processors promise chip revolution