A NEW CHIP THAT'S A
SURFBOARD FOR DATA
''IT'S JUST A PROTOTYPE, BUT it's the start of plasma-wave
electronics,'' says Michael Shur, a professor of solid-state electronics
at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, N.Y. He's talking about
a chip that marks a radical change from current technology: It transmits
signals as waves, not as packets of electrons. This promises to boost
computer ''heartbeat'' speeds from today's megahertz range--233 MHz
for top-end mainstream PCs--into the gigahertz realm, or billions of
cycles per second.
To explain how, Shur draws an analogy with sound. Sounds travel on
waves rippling through the air, not as clumps of air molecules that leave
one person's mouth and enter another's ear. If sound worked that way,
there would be a long delay while the sound-carrying molecules
elbowed their way through the other air molecules. Similarly, he says,
chips can harness a so-called plasma wave to send signals through the
fluid of electrons within chip circuits.
Shur proposed the scheme in 1993. Now, with help from colleagues at
Russia's Ioffe Institute and the University of Virginia, he has built a
crude plasma-wave chip. If the research and development continues to
pan out, he envisions such applications as sensors of exquisite
sensitivity--they could be tuned to detect the molecular vibrations of
specific substances, including explosives. Signals that surf the electron
waves, says Shur, would bring ''many, many exciting new
opportunities.''
EDITED BY OTIS PORT |
