Major Step Toward Molecular Computing
Researchers from Hewlett-Packard and the University of California at Los
Angeles have developed a way to create molecular-sized computing components
using chemical processes (rather than light beams) to make integrated
circuits.
Although their accomplishment is just a first step for the new field of
molecular electronics ("moletronics"), it leads in the direction of a new
world in which computers will be 100 billion times as fast as a Pentium
processor and a space no bigger than a grain of salt will hold the power of
100 workstations.
One moletronics expert explains, "A single molecular computer could
conceivably have more transistors than all of the transistors in all of the
computers in the world today."
With molecular-scale sensors and processors, computers could an integral
part of every man-made object and every field of human activity (including
medicine, where they could be placed in a person's bloodstream to issue
alerts if health problems are encountered).
New York Times 16 Jul 99
<http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/07/biztech/articles/16compute.html>
janet paterson
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