14 DAY TRIAL // Although not many of you know it, Taiwan is among the top four microchip producers in the world, so there should come as no surprise the fact that Taiwanese scientists have managed to build what they claim to be the world's smallest chip, measuring just 9 nanometres across.
To put things in perspective, a nanometer is equal to one-billionth of a meter, meaning that a chip just 1cm2 would be able to hold 20 times more data than current flash memory while using 200 times less power.
As these two benefits are highly sought after in the portable device world, tablet and smartphone manufacturers could be among the very first clients to deploy this technology in their products.
According to the scientists, a chip the size of one square centimeter would be able to store 1 million pictures or 100 hours of 3D movies, more than enough for even the most demanding users.
“Researchers used to believe that 20 nanometers was the limit for microchip technologies,” said Ho Chia-hua, the scientist who heads the team behind the project at the state-run National Nano-Device Laboratories.
According to Ho, this new technology is expected to enter mass production within five to ten years, as the scientist hopes the chip will allow Taiwan's global memory output to grow from the present 1% to about 10 percent in the future.
However, Nobunaga Chai, an analyst from the Taipei electronics market research company Digitimes, is more skeptical about the technology's future as it told Taipei Times: “I’m afraid it will take several years before the advanced technology can be turned into -commercial use.”
Whatever the future may have in store for us, I am sure that sooner or later this new chip manufacturing process will see the light of day, although it's pretty tough to say when exactly this happens.