Robotic Nation Evidence

Illinois researchers create world's fastest transistor ... again

From the article:

Their latest device, with a frequency of 509 gigahertz, is 57 gigahertz faster than their previous record holder and could find use in applications such as high-speed communications products, consumer electronics and electronic combat systems.

Also:

Our ultimate goal is to make a terahertz transistor

This paper is interesting in light of this report from Intel dated 2001:

Intel Researchers Build World's Fastest Silicon Transistors

From that article:

These transistors -- featuring structures just 20 nanometers (nm) in size -- will allow Intel to build microprocessors containing a billion transistors, running at speeds approaching 20 gigahertz and operating at less than one volt in approximately 2007.

This article claims that Intel's transisitors can "turn on and off more than a trillion times per second", meaning they are twice as fast as the Illinois transistors.

Either way, what you can see is that microprocessors have a lot of room for speed improvements. One problem with faster chips will be heat generation, so research is intensifying in this area:

Researchers propose center to develop future chip-cooling technologies

From the article:

Researchers at Purdue University are collaborating with several other universities in proposing a new center to design technologies that will be needed in coming decades to cool advanced computer chips.

"The bottom line is that we've all got to begin working on this problem now, or the computer industry is going to hit a brick wall in about 15 years," said Suresh Garimella, a professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University. "Future computer chips will generate as much as 10 times more heat than today's computer chips, which means we are going to need new cooling technologies."

See also 1 terabyte hard disks.