Microchip ... in 3-D

[DVZ3]

"Scientists from the University of Cambridge have created, for the first time, a new type of microchip which allows information to travel in three dimensions. Currently, microchips can only pass digital information in a very limited way -- from either left to right or front to back."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130130132407.htm

This is fantasic as Morres law will be hitting a barrier in the coming years of just how small the limits are for producing transistors.

[Nick]

So what might this mean for the future?

[DVZ3]

Hey Nick,

It basically means that this is potentially technology to be used to substitute and/or utilize in combination with todays 2-dimensional silicon wafer and memory technologies.

In other words, it will allow for greater computational solving per clock cycle (unit of time per instuction set of a microchip to solve a mathematical calcualation per unit of area in 2D) at the same increasing the computational power per clock cycle. But I have to beleive that the heat and power transfer to these 3D layers of transistors will still need to be solved.

But when these are both perfected, computational power will continue to increase exponentially (which it has been and does today but we are reaching the limits soon) which is also why science is only beginning to explode...

As these obvious computer, simulation, and scientific discoveries seem to increase (they are....) we've only begun to scratch the surface with human discovery and knowledge.

I can't wait until exoflop supercomputers are commonplace.  See wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLOPS

[Graybeard]

I Like this from the article:

Professor Russell Cowburn, lead researcher of the study from the Cavendish Laboratory, the University of Cambridge's Department of Physics, said: "Each step on our spintronic staircase is only a few atoms high. I find it amazing that by using nanotechnology not only can we build structures with such precision in the lab but also using advanced laser instruments we can actually see the data climbing this nano-staircase step by step.

I don't care if it does anything, that is truly amazing.

[ParkingPlaces]

The above will be old tech by next year. The next big thing in computing is memristors, a new type of electronic component that makes everything else look like its standing still. They'll be able to cram so much in such a small space that part of the chip will be able to go back and forth between being a processor to being memory and/or storage, as needed. And when used as storage, the lifespan of the product is literally measured in "geologic time" verses a few years or decades with current storage technologies.

Here are a couple of links so you can drool:
http://www.memristor.org
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/07/hp-memristors/

Of course none of this is as impressive as using DNA to hold 1400 full length blue-ray DVD's. One grams worth. Which they have officially done.
Half a cup of DNA storage would hold the equivalent of If that isn't good enough for you, how about the recent breakthrough in using DNA for storage. It isn't fast, but Harvard just announced that they were able to store 700 terabytes of date, equivalent to 1400 Blue Ray movies, in ONE GRAM of DNA.

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/134672-harvard-cracks-dna-storage-crams-700-terabytes-of-data-into-a-single-gram

Frickin' ridiculous.

So its gonna keep getting better. It'll be best probably the day after I die. That's the kind of luck I have.