[plug] getting realy small

[Mike]

>
>Today's Pentium chips pack as many as 42 million transistors under
>their covers, and Moore's Law (that transistor density doubles every 18
>months) continues to predict years of evolutionary, exponential growth.
>But suppose someone came up with a different kind of transistor -- one
>dramatically smaller than predicted by Moore's Law?
>
>Suppose it came from Japan's Institute of Physical and Chemical
>Research, and it was called a "single-electron tunneling transistor"?
>Suppose it could operate at room temperature?  Suppose this new type of
>transistor was "three magnitudes of order smaller than the gigabit
>limit for MOS [metal oxide semiconductors]"?
>
>Indeed, that's what they've created:  a transistor made up of three,
>3-nanometer-wide (3 billionths of a meter) wires, clustered around a
>capacitor made up of 500 atoms of silver, all sitting on a graphite
>substrate.  It uses one single electron on the "gate" lead to control
>current through the rest of the transistor (hence, it's a "switch").
>According to Masakazu Aono in the March 7 EE Times
>(http://www.eet.com/story/OEG20010306S0061
><http://www.eet.com/story/OEG20010306S0061> ),
>
>    "We can make an atomic switch in a cluster of silver atoms.  The
>    island [the area in the center of the transistor] is so small we
>    are talking about a one-electron effect circuit."