Carbon nanotube 16 bit CPU comes of age

[Martin Brown]

This made the physics news today. A working 16bit CPU fabricated on
carbon nanotube semiconductor material. Also in Nature and unusually the
link from the Physics website gives free access (maybe only to members).

If it can be made to work in production quantities then they reckon an
order of magnitude decrease in power consumption relative to silicon.

https://physicsworld.com/a/carbon-nanotube-16-bit-microprocessor-takes-computing-beyond-silicon/

Direct link to Nature article:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1493-8

The authors love their 5 letter process acronyms...

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Winfield Hill]

Martin Brown wrote...

This made the physics news today. A working 16bit CPU fabricated on
carbon nanotube semiconductor material. Also in Nature and unusually the
link from the Physics website gives free access (maybe only to members).

If it can be made to work in production quantities then they reckon an
order of magnitude decrease in power consumption relative to silicon.

https://physicsworld.com/a/carbon-nanotube-16-bit-microprocessor-takes-computing-beyond-silicon/

Direct link to Nature article:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1493-8

The authors love their 5 letter process acronyms...

More details in an arsTECHNICA article, worth reading:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/08/16-bit-risc-v-processor-made-with-carbon-nanutubes/

"the clockspeed was only 10kHz"

"Overall, this is an impressive bit of engineering and an important
validation that we can integrate carbon nanotubes with our existing
chipmaking processes, as well as with the additional electronics
that are necessary for a processor to function. But it doesn't go
very far in terms of solving the issues that keep carbon nanotubes
from reaching their full potential."


--
Thanks,
- Win

 

On Thu, 29 Aug 2019 08:54:15 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

This made the physics news today. A working 16bit CPU fabricated on
carbon nanotube semiconductor material. Also in Nature and unusually the
link from the Physics website gives free access (maybe only to members).

If it can be made to work in production quantities then they reckon an
order of magnitude decrease in power consumption relative to silicon.

https://physicsworld.com/a/carbon-nanotube-16-bit-microprocessor-takes-computing-beyond-silicon/

Direct link to Nature article:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1493-8

The authors love their 5 letter process acronyms...

It can use the Nantero nanotube RAM!

 

[Martin Brown]

On 29/08/2019 11:24, Winfield Hill wrote:

Martin Brown wrote...

This made the physics news today. A working 16bit CPU fabricated on
carbon nanotube semiconductor material. Also in Nature and unusually the
link from the Physics website gives free access (maybe only to members).

If it can be made to work in production quantities then they reckon an
order of magnitude decrease in power consumption relative to silicon.

https://physicsworld.com/a/carbon-nanotube-16-bit-microprocessor-takes-computing-beyond-silicon/

Direct link to Nature article:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1493-8

The authors love their 5 letter process acronyms...

More details in an arsTECHNICA article, worth reading:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/08/16-bit-risc-v-processor-made-with-carbon-nanutubes/

"the clockspeed was only 10kHz"

Thanks. I missed that minor detail in my initial enthusiasm for it.

"Overall, this is an impressive bit of engineering and an important
validation that we can integrate carbon nanotubes with our existing
chipmaking processes, as well as with the additional electronics
that are necessary for a processor to function. But it doesn't go
very far in terms of solving the issues that keep carbon nanotubes
from reaching their full potential."

It is still impressive to get it to work at all - even if slowly.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote in
news:qk975s$vte$1@gioia.aioe.org:

On 29/08/2019 11:24, Winfield Hill wrote:
Martin Brown wrote...

This made the physics news today. A working 16bit CPU fabricated
on carbon nanotube semiconductor material. Also in Nature and
unusually the link from the Physics website gives free access
(maybe only to members).

If it can be made to work in production quantities then they
reckon an order of magnitude decrease in power consumption
relative to silicon.

https://physicsworld.com/a/carbon-nanotube-16-bit-microprocessor-
takes-computing-beyond-silicon/

Direct link to Nature article:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1493-8

The authors love their 5 letter process acronyms...

More details in an arsTECHNICA article, worth reading:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/08/16-bit-risc-v-processor-ma
de-with-carbon-nanutubes/

"the clockspeed was only 10kHz"

Thanks. I missed that minor detail in my initial enthusiasm for
it.

"Overall, this is an impressive bit of engineering and an
important validation that we can integrate carbon nanotubes
with our existing chipmaking processes, as well as with the
additional electronics that are necessary for a processor to
function. But it doesn't go very far in terms of solving the
issues that keep carbon nanotubes from reaching their full
potential."

It is still impressive to get it to work at all - even if slowly.

Could 1024 of them operating in parallel, even slowly crunch down
some serious processing?

 

On Friday, 30 August 2019 15:57:12 UTC+1, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:

Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote in
news:qk975s$vte$1@gioia.aioe.org:
On 29/08/2019 11:24, Winfield Hill wrote:
Martin Brown wrote...

This made the physics news today. A working 16bit CPU fabricated
on carbon nanotube semiconductor material. Also in Nature and
unusually the link from the Physics website gives free access
(maybe only to members).

If it can be made to work in production quantities then they
reckon an order of magnitude decrease in power consumption
relative to silicon.

https://physicsworld.com/a/carbon-nanotube-16-bit-microprocessor-
takes-computing-beyond-silicon/

Direct link to Nature article:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1493-8

The authors love their 5 letter process acronyms...

More details in an arsTECHNICA article, worth reading:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/08/16-bit-risc-v-processor-ma
de-with-carbon-nanutubes/

"the clockspeed was only 10kHz"

Thanks. I missed that minor detail in my initial enthusiasm for
it.

"Overall, this is an impressive bit of engineering and an
important validation that we can integrate carbon nanotubes
with our existing chipmaking processes, as well as with the
additional electronics that are necessary for a processor to
function. But it doesn't go very far in terms of solving the
issues that keep carbon nanotubes from reaching their full
potential."

It is still impressive to get it to work at all - even if slowly.


Could 1024 of them operating in parallel, even slowly crunch down
some serious processing?

If the problem is amenable to such parallellism, 1000 cores could net you a massive under 10MHz effective performance. For problems that aren't parallel processable, you're stuck at 10kHz. Hopefully the next generation can optimise the structure somewhat - never know, it might even reach 0.1MHz

I do think the way of the future is to write code to max out its parallel computability, and have a whole pile of extra cost-cut cores.


NT

 

On Friday, 30 August 2019 18:36:57 UTC+2, tabb...@gmail.com wrote:

On Friday, 30 August 2019 15:57:12 UTC+1, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote in
news:qk975s$vte$1@gioia.aioe.org:
On 29/08/2019 11:24, Winfield Hill wrote:
Martin Brown wrote...

This made the physics news today. A working 16bit CPU fabricated
on carbon nanotube semiconductor material. Also in Nature and
unusually the link from the Physics website gives free access
(maybe only to members).

If it can be made to work in production quantities then they
reckon an order of magnitude decrease in power consumption
relative to silicon.

https://physicsworld.com/a/carbon-nanotube-16-bit-microprocessor-
takes-computing-beyond-silicon/

Direct link to Nature article:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1493-8

The authors love their 5 letter process acronyms...

More details in an arsTECHNICA article, worth reading:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/08/16-bit-risc-v-processor-ma
de-with-carbon-nanutubes/

"the clockspeed was only 10kHz"

Thanks. I missed that minor detail in my initial enthusiasm for
it.

"Overall, this is an impressive bit of engineering and an
important validation that we can integrate carbon nanotubes
with our existing chipmaking processes, as well as with the
additional electronics that are necessary for a processor to
function. But it doesn't go very far in terms of solving the
issues that keep carbon nanotubes from reaching their full
potential."

It is still impressive to get it to work at all - even if slowly.


Could 1024 of them operating in parallel, even slowly crunch down
some serious processing?

If the problem is amenable to such parallellism, 1000 cores could net you a massive under 10MHz effective performance. For problems that aren't parallel processable, you're stuck at 10kHz. Hopefully the next generation can optimise the structure somewhat - never know, it might even reach 0.1MHz

I do think the way of the future is to write code to max out its parallel computability, and have a whole pile of extra cost-cut cores.

Only very limited application can live with 100kHz speed. Speed is critical for optimal design

Regards

Klaus