Nanocomputer is the logical name for a computer smaller than the microcomputer, which is smaller than the minicomputer.
Smallest computers today
Microelectronic components that are at the core of all modern electronic devices employ semiconductor transistors. The term nanocomputer is increasingly used to refer to general computing devices of size comparable to a credit card. The first use of this name appears to be to describe the s1mp3 manufactured by The Flying Electron Inc. (7 November 2008). It is now used for a wider range of devices, such as
- Arduino
- BeagleBoard
- Olinuxino
- Odroid
- Miracast dongles
- All the PC-on-a-stick (MK802 series...)
- Raspberry Pi
Future computers smaller than 10 nanometers
Eventually computers will be developed with fundamental parts that are no bigger than a few nanometers. There are several ways nanocomputers might be built, using mechanical, electronic, biochemical, or quantum technology.
Consensus among hardware developers has been that is unlikely that nanocomputers will be made out of semiconductor transistors, as they seem to perform significantly less well when shrunk to sizes under 100 nanometers. Although developers have reduced microprocessors to 22Â nm as of April 2012. Moreover, Intel's 5 nanometer technology outlook predicts 5Â nm feature size by 2022. The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors gives an industrial consensus on feature scaling following Moore's Law.
Note that a Silicon-Silicon bond length is 235.2Â pm, which means that a 5Â nm-width transistor would be 21 silicon atoms wide.
See also
- Nanotechnology
- Starseed launcher - Interstellar nanoprobes proposal
- List of fictional computers in the 1980s - Low Energy Variable Input Nanocomputer (LEVIN) from William T Quick's novels Dreams of Gods and Men, and Singularities. (1989)
- Quantum computer
References
External links
- A spray-on computer is way to do IT
- Future Nanocomputer Technologies - Diagram of possible technologies (electronic, organic, mechanical, quantum).
