IBM’s New Transistors Only Need A Microburst Of Power

IBM’s New Transistors Only Need A Microburst Of Power


The capabilities of new microprocessors are typically expressed around Moore’s Law, but it’s assumed that at some point we’ll pass its threshold in relation to what we can do with silicon. New research from IBM suggests that one of the most critical issues — heat produced by increasing transistor density — may be about to be solved.

Readwrite reports on the research, which looks at converting metal oxide materials to and from a conductive metallic state in a way that’s stable even after power stops flowing through them. Why does that matter? Current silicon transistors require a constant power flow at all times to remain effective in switching around their many billions of ones and zeroes, whereas a system that could use only power as and when needed could operate at vastly lower power states.

That has implications for core computing power because of the implications with heat dissipation, but also obviously for power life of mobile devices, although the research is still in its very early stages, so it’s not like you’ll be buying a laptop with this included any time soon.
[readwrite]
Image: Patrick H~


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

It’s the most popular NBN speed in Australia for a reason. Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Gizmodo, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.