14 DAY TRIAL // A nano sized computer is not really a new and original idea as it has been around for decades in Sci-Fi books and magazines. The new idea is to actually construct them and to use a 200 years old concept, as the nano chip will be in fact a machine inspired by the works of the nineteenth century English mathematician and engineer Charles Babbage, who built a number of mechanical computers.
Nano chips will be built from nanometer sized parts and because they would not be silicon based, they should work in places where previous silicon chips were just too delicate to resists. "What we are proposing is a new type of computing architecture that is only based on nano mechanical elements," said Professor Robert Blick of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and one of the authors of the paper on nano machines who was cited by the BBC news site. "We are not going to compete with high-speed silicon, but where we are competitive is for all of those mundane applications where you need microprocessors which can be slow and cheap as well".
The tiny computer chip will be built from some ultra durable materials like diamond and some piezoelectric one as well in order to change shape as electric currents pass through it. Unlike the modern day computer processors that use electron movements inside closed circuits to carry out their tasks, the nano machines will effectively move in order to calculate. As only little time passed since this project began, researchers are still building the first base elements of the new computer system: the transistors.
"We have demonstrated that a single element of these transistors work," said Professor Blick. He also related that computer simulations suggest that it should be possible to build working circuits at a smaller scale than the one currently used. "We are quite confident that in a couple of years this work will lead to commercial applications".