Status of electronics today

[Carrot44]

This old fart remembers Electron Tubes or valves and I recall the slow switch to the tranny then the IC and the CPU. Each step from the tube to the tranny to the IC have all been revolutionary events in the development of electronices. Granted The IC has gotten smaller and faster and we can pack more things onto them but it is still just an IC and the Tranny has branched into several different directions but again it is just a tranny at heart. There appears to be no advances beyond the IC and tranny or has there been.......?

 

[Cogman]

to be perfectly honest, the biggest developments have been makeing the transistors small and smaller. What does look promising is carbon-nanotubing. Small tubes of carbon that can carry electrons and even can be arranged to work as a transistor. It will run much more effectivly then current circits (and hence cooler) and is extremly durable (Someone once said you could easily make your car out of this stuff and it would be more durable/scratch resistant and it could be turned into a supercomputer).

The current drawback is only that we have not yet found a method of mass production for this stuff. But once we do, the future is bright, and electronics get much smaller then they are now.

 

[Cogman]

on a quick note, scientists also wanted to use a ribbon of carbon nano tubing as a space ladder. The vehicle would probibly just us and electric engine that ran off energy from the carbon nanotubing strip. The stuff would be the size of a ribbon and go clear to space, and yet it can support the weight of a space shuttle (thats how strong this stuff is).

 

[TuxDave]

Well... if say trannys are described as a switch made from silicon, then I guess all the advancements in transistors that we have (as I know it), is still a tranny despite the various changes of physical form (not just scaling).

Otherwise, I would say you're missing MEMs in your technology tree.

 

[Carrot44]

Originally posted by: TuxDave
Well... if say trannys are described as a switch made from silicon, then I guess all the advancements in transistors that we have (as I know it), is still a tranny despite the various changes of physical form (not just scaling).

Otherwise, I would say you're missing MEMs in your technology tree.

What are MEMs?

 

[Geniere]

This old fart also recalls the first time he saw a Darlington pair, two transistors in the same package. I could not believe it could be possible. I saw my first true computer in 1948 at Bell Tel Labs in Murray Hill NJ. This (link below), shown to me by my older (much smarter) sister who did math/physics work there. Programs were hard wired into it, output was a Teletype machine at 10 baud if I remember. She played Bridge with some of the great solid-state pioneers of the day.

Before I finished my degree, I serviced computers for RCA. Their 301 and 501 models were designed cc. 1955, had no integrated circuits and the memory was donuts suspended on wires. They were 7 bit computers with a parity check using the 8th bit. Program entry was via punch card or by Teletype tape reader. Mass storage was usually tape but they also made some really odd ball (non serial, mechanical nightmare) storage devices. Usually there were 8 gates per circuit board and thousands of circuit boards. Just before I left, I installed an IBM Winchester drive at one of my sites. Wow


http://lawton.com/Galleries/Historic_Computers/Bell_Relay_Computer.html

 

[TuxDave]

Originally posted by: Carrot44

Originally posted by: TuxDave
Well... if say trannys are described as a switch made from silicon, then I guess all the advancements in transistors that we have (as I know it), is still a tranny despite the various changes of physical form (not just scaling).

Otherwise, I would say you're missing MEMs in your technology tree.

What are MEMs?

Microelectronic Mechanical devices. Before we had to rely on external springs/gears if we wanted to measure acceleration, but now we have the ability to build microstructures on silicon. Also, we found that using FBAR structures which are kinda like a resonating tuning fork, we're able to build very high quality electronic filters. So now many more things can be done on chip.

 

[TuxDave]

http://www.memsnet.org/mems/what-is.html

It's some freaking CRAZY crap that's going on with MEMs. The introduction of MEMs first merged the fields of Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. We developed to the point where we can merge those two fields with Biomedical Engineering. We're currently developing DNA chips where the presence of a type of bacteria will change the field in some fluid which can be detected by MEMs and translated into circuitry for analysis.

 

[oneshot47]

Id say way off in the distance is some kind of practical quantum computing. Look it up on google to find a good explanation. (i dont feel like explaining it.)

 

[Cogman]

Originally posted by: Geniere
This old fart also recalls the first time he saw a Darlington pair, two transistors in the same package. I could not believe it could be possible. I saw my first true computer in 1948 at Bell Tel Labs in Murray Hill NJ. This (link below), shown to me by my older (much smarter) sister who did math/physics work there. Programs were hard wired into it, output was a Teletype machine at 10 baud if I remember. She played Bridge with some of the great solid-state pioneers of the day.

Before I finished my degree, I serviced computers for RCA. Their 301 and 501 models were designed cc. 1955, had no integrated circuits and the memory was donuts suspended on wires. They were 7 bit computers with a parity check using the 8th bit. Program entry was via punch card or by Teletype tape reader. Mass storage was usually tape but they also made some really odd ball (non serial, mechanical nightmare) storage devices. Usually there were 8 gates per circuit board and thousands of circuit boards. Just before I left, I installed an IBM Winchester drive at one of my sites. Wow


http://lawton.com/Galleries/Historic_Computers/Bell_Relay_Computer.html

:shocked: Wow, and I thought that old geeks did not exist . No, I actually think that the history of electronics is pretty interesting. But, Just wow. (humm saw first computer in 1948, assuming you where 25 at the time...... wow makes you about 81)

 

[Geniere]

Make it 9 yrs old in '48.

 

[TuxDave]

Originally posted by: Geniere
Make it 9 yrs old in '48.

Woah.... at the beginnings of practically every computer architecture/digital circuits class, we always talked about what it was like in the beginning. You were actually there.... woah.....

 

[BespinReactorShaft]

My exposure to MEMS has been in opto-electronics only, in creating discreetly adjustable "mirrors" for adding and dropping wavelengths coming to/from optical fibers. That never really took off (yet) due to instabilities and cost reasons. But I'm quite intrigued by the future it could have with biotech. Cyborgs and nanotech.... darn I'm suddenly reminded of my stalled Deus Ex campaign ::LOL::

BTW am I the only one who thinks the term "tranny" hovers awkwardly close to "RuPaul"?

 

[TuxDave]

Originally posted by: ming2020
My exposure to MEMS has been in opto-electronics only, in creating discreetly adjustable "mirrors" for adding and dropping wavelengths coming to/from optical fibers. That never really took off (yet) due to instabilities and cost reasons. But I'm quite intrigued by the future it could have with biotech. Cyborgs and nanotech.... darn I'm suddenly reminded of my stalled Deus Ex campaign ::LOL::

BTW am I the only one who thinks the term "tranny" hovers awkwardly close to "RuPaul"?

<------- piggy-backing off MEMs guys. The MEMs people here are using adjustable mirrors for the purpose of maskless lithography. They got the mirror part working, I'm just building the CMOS circuits that drive controls the mirror.

 

[Geniere]

Any one know what a "phit" is? Hint it's a better bit.

 

[TuxDave]

Originally posted by: Geniere
Any one know what a "phit" is? Hint it's a better bit.

Does it stores true false and maybe? I dunno, I'm just guessing, so what is it.

 

[Geniere]

?phit? is an acronym for phase bit. I read about it in this month?s Scientific American that is devoted to Einstein and modern devices his theories made possible. Every one should get a copy, it?s a great issue..

The phit is a term applied to the spin of an electron as may be used in computer logic of the future. Some advantages include very high speed, small energy required (little heating), many states (not just ?0? and ?1?)?

 

[everman]

Originally posted by: Geniere
?phit? is an acronym for phase bit. I read about it in this month?s Scientific American that is devoted to Einstein and modern devices his theories made possible. Every one should get a copy, it?s a great issue..

The phit is a term applied to the spin of an electron as may be used in computer logic of the future. Some advantages include very high speed, small energy required (little heating), many states (not just ?0? and ?1?)?

Sounds similar to a qubit?

 

[jay75]

One of the members of the team that built the first field-effect transistor, lives in my building!! Dr. Rajan Mehta. They spent three years trying to figure out a problem, and then realised that it was due to sodium contamination in one of the machines! Being a physicist is a tough job.

 

[Smilin]

Here's a new advance for you:

They have found a way to etch circuits smaller than the wavelegth of light used to produce them!

(previously thought impossible "by definition")