Could modern, nanoscale vacuum tubes replace transistors?
Public Group active 2 years, 11 months agoOne of the topics we’ve covered multiple times at ExtremeTech is the difficulty of continuing to scale semiconductor technology, and the related problem of improving chip performance without increasing clock speed. While Intel and also other manufacturers in order to search for long-term solutions to this problem, no known next-generation technology is likely to restart silicon scaling and for returning to traditional clock speed gains.
Researchers in the California Institute of Technology think could have a strategy to this problem — 1 involves returning to a early technology resolve the problems of existing methods. Vacuum tubes, as stated by Dr. Axel Scherer, could key to improving transistor performance and lowering power consumption.
Chances are, when you think vacuum tubes, you think about old radios or possibly Aopen’s AX4B-533 “TubeAmp” system board. The systems that Dr. Scherer and his research team are working on are in contrast to classic vacuum tubes — according on the team, the structures are roughly 1,000x smaller than a human blood cell, which would make them 6–8nm. Recognize with modern CPUs simply because suffer from significant numbers of electricity leakage — Scherer’s designs would use leakage current to flip states on purpose, thereby improving efficiency and functionality.
One explanation for this principals are that Scherer thinks the microprocessor teams scaling below 10nm will encounter complaints. The properties of silicon apparently change during that point, becoming both elastic and emitting light. “It’s a different material, so it gives you this different behavior,” Scherer told the new York Times.
Can tubes replace transistors?
Dr. Scherer isn’t getting as much exercise reinvent the transistor or replace the silicon budget. Boeing is funding his research due to the potential applications in space and aviation technologies, and silicon will obviously function as gold standard for everyone for years to come. It’s still interesting to think about the question: Could this kind of fundamentally different technology, shrunk to a microscopic scale, solve the problems of transistor scaling and performance?
Maybe — but there’s a lot of problems become solved between here and there. First, there’s the question of manufacturing — can we crank out tens of thousands of vacuum-based processors in a month? What does it cost to build these solutions, switch out manufacturing hardware, and build an ecosystem around them? Can they built quickly enough to maintain current production rates, and how will they integrate into existing product lines?
These might sound like boring questions rather than a technology’s fundamental promise, nevertheless the boring questions are what ultimately determine if or not tech comes to market. Many of us talk about Intel not being able to build faster CPUs, it doesn’t mean silicon could be the fastest semiconductor ever. It indicates that Intel can’t choose a method creating faster chips that’s cost-effective, scaleable, and likely to last multiple product generations.
Miniature vacuum tubes could evolve into a major driver of PC performance, especially when they could be manufactured at scale, but the cost and manufacturing challenges are a huge roadblock to the different technology establishing itself as a silicon competing. Neither carbon nanotubes nor graphene have done so, despite huge initial hype. There’s something satisfying in the idea that a century-old technology end up being adapted and improved with enough force that it boosts modern computing, but it’s to be able to take for the better of expensive work to prove it can do as.
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