Section I. FUTURE APPLICATIONS
4-1.
INTRODUCTION
a. General. Computer technology and its applications is such a rapidly
developing field that you can read almost daily about new breakthroughs. It is almost
too difficult to keep up with the latest developments, for what is groundbreaking today,
can be superseded by something else tomorrow. In the first section of this lesson, we
shall attempt to describe some of the trends and future applications of computer
technology. Some of them, no doubt, will have become "old hat" by the time you read
about them in this subcourse. But it is a fascinating topic that deserves some attention,
nevertheless.
b. Miniaturization. Data retrieval from computer chips is much faster than from
disks, and chips are less delicate, so computer components will continue to become
smaller and faster as the technology is improved. But there are limits to miniaturization
resulting from design problems. As the size of one transistor shrinks almost to that of
the wavelength of light itself, it gets harder to engrave circuits (even using the most
sophisticated light-based methods such as laser beams). Also, smaller is not always
better. The tiniest transistors, some smaller than bacteria, operate on so little energy
that they are vulnerable to heavenly interference. A burst of energy from cosmic rays,
fast-moving atomic particles, or temperature variations can cause the transistor to
switch on and off erroneously.
Figure 4-1. A chip compared to a dime. This incredibly tiny microchip, the brain of an
entire computer, is equivalent to 450,000 transistors.
4-2.
NUMBER OF TRANSISTOR CIRCUITS PER CHIP
By 1981, only 10 years after their introduction, microprocessers became more
powerful than the CPUs of many contemporary mainframe computers. Their speed,
multiplying two 32-bit numbers in 1.8 millionths of a second, comes from an array of
450,000 transistors linked by 18 yards of vapor- deposited tungsten wire. All of this
occupies a silicon chip scarcely a quarter of an inch square. This is less space than a
single transistor required before the invention of the integrated circuit. This mind
boggling shrinkage of components is likely to continue into the 1990s, when scientists
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