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One 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 scrap functioning without increasing clock speed. While Intel and other manufacturers continue to search for long-term solutions to this trouble, no known adjacent-generation technology is expected to restart silicon scaling and allow for a return to traditional clock speed gains.

Researchers at the California Found of Technology think they may have a solution to this problem — one that involves returning to a very old technology to solve the problems of existing methods. Vacuum tubes, according to Dr. Axel Scherer, could be key to improving transistor performance and lowering ability consumption.

TubeAmp

Chances are, when you lot recollect vacuum tubes, you retrieve of old radios or possibly Aopen's AX4B-533 "TubeAmp" motherboard. The systems that Dr. Scherer and his enquiry team are working on are nada like classic vacuum tubes — according to the squad, the structures are roughly one,000x smaller than a human being blood cell, which would brand them 6-8nm. One problem with modern CPUs is that they endure from pregnant amounts of electricity leakage — Scherer'due south designs would use leakage electric current to flip states on purpose, thereby improving efficiency and overall performance.

Ane reason for this research is that Scherer thinks the microprocessor teams scaling below 10nm will come across problems. The properties of silicon apparently alter at that betoken, becoming both elastic and emitting lite. "It'due south a different material, and it gives you this different behavior," Scherer told the New York Times.

Tin tubes replace transistors?

Dr. Scherer isn't trying to reinvent the transistor or supersede the silicon economy. Boeing is funding his research due to its potential applications in space and aviation technologies, and silicon will obviously be the gold standard for anybody for years to come. It's even so interesting to consider the question: Could such a fundamentally unlike technology, shrunk to a microscopic scale, solve the issues of transistor scaling and functioning?

Maybe — merely there's a lot of issues to exist solved between here and there. Outset, at that place'southward the question of manufacturing — can we crank out tens of thousands of vacuum-based processors in a month? What does it price to build these solutions, switch out manufacturing hardware, and build an ecosystem around them? Can they built quickly plenty to maintain current production rates, and how will they integrate into existing product lines?

These might seem like ho-hum questions compared to a engineering'south cardinal promise, but the deadening questions are what ultimately determine whether or not tech comes to marketplace. When we talk about Intel not being able to build faster CPUs, it doesn't mean silicon is the fastest semiconductor ever. It means that Intel can't find a method of edifice faster fries that's cost-effective, scaleable, and likely to last multiple production generations.

Miniature vacuum tubes could evolve into a major commuter of PC operation, particularly if they can be manufactured at calibration, just the price and manufacturing challenges are a huge roadblock to whatever different technology establishing itself equally a silicon competitor. Neither carbon nanotubes nor graphene accept done and so, despite huge initial hype. In that location'south something satisfying in the idea that a century-old engineering could be adapted and improved to the point that information technology boosts modern calculating, simply it's going to take an awful lot of expensive work to prove it tin can do so.