Live-wire experts clear way for supercomputers
Engineers from the University of Edinburgh examined the behaviour of wires 1,000 times thinner than a human hair before coming up with their groundbreaking findings.
They have devised a tool to help combat problems that can arise from wiring microchips much smaller than the ones we are used to today.
Those behind the project hope the new-found knowledge will eventually lead to medical advances, as well as hand-held PCs and mobile phones as powerful as laptops being available on the high street.
In order to create a powerful computer the size of a mobile phone, it is necessary to develop much smaller microchips which use thinner wires.
Edinburgh researchers teamed up with colleagues from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany and the University of Rome, Italy, to look at how tiny wires behave when they are manipulated.
With the help of computers, they found that wires on a nanoscale — measured in millionths of a millimetre — behave quite differently from bigger wires.
Dr Michael Zaiser, of Edinburgh’s school of engineering and electronics, said: “Basically, we just tried to look at what would happen if we deformed a wire that is very, very small.
“What we found is that when we made these wires smaller and smaller they started to behave in a very funny way.”
The odd behaviour poses problems when it comes to trying to wire microchips much smaller than those around at the moment.
In response, Edinburgh’s experts have come up with a tool, essentially a computer programme, which allows engineers to predict when these problems might arise — and avoid them.
The discovery should help ensure that wiring in electronic devices is effective, even in matchbox-size supercomputers.
The university said the researchers’ insights would be crucial to creating the wiring in the computers of the future.
Dr Zaiser predicted such supercomputers were probably a decade away.
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