Thursday, April 3, 2008

Tiny Brain-Like Computer Created - Yahoo! News

 

The most powerful computer known is the brain, and now scientists have designed a machine just a few molecules large that mimics how the brain works.

So far the device can simultaneously carry out 16 times more operations than a normal computer transistor. Researchers suggest the invention might eventually prove able to perform roughly 1,000 times more operations than a transistor.

The device is made of a compound known as duroquinone. This molecule resembles a hexagonal plate with four cones linked to it, "like a small car," explained researcher Anirban Bandyopadhyay, an artificial intelligence and molecular electronics scientist at the National Institute for Materials Science at Tsukuba in Japan. Duroquinone is less than a nanometer, or a billionth of a meter large. This makes it hundreds of times smaller than a wavelength of visible light. The machine is made of 17 duroquinone molecules. One molecule sits at the center of a ring formed by the remaining 16. The entire invention sits on a surface of gold.

Tiny Brain-Like Computer Created - Yahoo! News

Technorati Tags:

No comments: