Gordon Moore says, although many believe the future of the computing industry lies with building chips out of carbon nanotubes or other novel materials, it won't be easy to replace silicon. Mr.Moore adds,"Modern-day microprocessors contain hundreds of millions of transistors, and soon will have billions,and, to break even, manufacturers have to pop out millions of these complex devices. Although researchers have been able to produce individual nanotube transistors, the ability to mass produce hasn't been shown".Designers have been able to put more transistors on chips for decades by shrinking the size of the transistors, but they are now at the point where some structures inside chips are only a few atoms thick. "Any material made of atoms has a fundamental limit," Moore said. The solution? Make the chips bigger. Carbon nanotubes, he added, wouldn't be completely left out. They could be used to replace the metal interconnects between the transistors.
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