Nanocomputer refers to acomputer smaller than themicrocomputer, which is smaller than theminicomputer.
Microelectronic components that are at the core of all modern electronic devices employ semiconductortransistors. The term nanocomputer is increasingly used to refer to general computing devices of size comparable to acredit card. Modernsingle-board computer such as theRaspberry Pi andGumstix would fall under this classification. Arguably,smartphones andtablets would also be classified as nanocomputers.
Die shrink has been more or less continuous since around 1970. A few years later, the6 μm process allowed the making ofdesktop computers, known as microcomputers.Moore's Law in the next 40 years brought features 1/100 the size, or ten thousand times as many transistors per square millimeter, puttingsmartphones in every pocket. Eventually computers will be developed with fundamental parts that are no bigger than a fewnanometers.[1]
Nanocomputers might be built in several ways, using mechanical, electronic, biochemical, orquantumnanotechnology. There used to be consensus among hardware developers that it is unlikely that nanocomputers will be made ofsemiconductortransistors, as they seem to perform significantly less well when shrunk to sizes under 100 nanometers.[2] Neverthelesss developers reducedmicroprocessor features to 22 nm in April 2012.[3] Moreover, Intel's5 nanometer technology outlook predicts 5 nm feature size by 2022. TheInternational Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors in the 2010s gave an industrial consensus on feature scaling followingMoore's Law. A silicon-siliconbond length is 235.2 pm,[4] which means that a 5 nm-width transistor would be 21 silicon atoms wide.
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