Radical Ballistic Computing
Martin Margala, Yonathan Shapir, Paul Ampadu, and Marc Feldman are working on a "ballistic transistor" that may someday compute by bouncing electrons around like billiard balls.
University computer designers are going
ballistic—with the Ballistic Deflection
Transistor.
"Everyone has been trying to make
better transistors by modifying current
designs, but what we really need is the
next paradigm," says Quentin Diduck,
a graduate student who thought up the
radical new design.
Instead of running electrons through
a transistor as if they were a current
of water, the ballistic design bounces
individual electrons off deflectors as if
playing atomic billiards.
"We're not just designing a new
transistor, but a new archetype as well,"
Marc Feldman, professor of electrical
and computer engineering, says.
The National Science Foundation
is so impressed with the idea that it just
granted the team $1.1 million to develop
a prototype.