Posts tagged science

Intel spending more than $1 billion on new CPU manufacturing plants.

With the latest range of Ivy Bridge CPU’s from Intel only recently hitting the market, the company is wasting no time investing in new technology for the next generation of processors.

Where Ivy Bridge used a 22nm manufacturing process, the next CPU will move that down to 14nm, which will be produced at 3 new ‘Fabs’ - one in Ireland and two in the US.

The 14nm process technology is expected to start being used in 2013.

Microsoft to push further development of ‘memory cube’.

Microsoft joined the Hybrid Memory Cube Consortium earlier this month, which already includes high profile companies Samsung and IBM. Together the group is trying to advance the technology which uses stacks of DRAM memory combined together with a logic layer on top to control and optimize the memory. Traditionally memory controllers are intergrated into other parts of computers, but by combining them into the logic layer of the memory cube, higher speeds can be achieved along with lower energy consumption.

According to the Consortium, the memory cube could provide 15x the performance of DDR3 memory (which is found in most new computers today), while utilizing an amazing 70% less energy per bit than DDR3.

The group hopes to have 2 and 4 Gigabyte versions of the cube available early next year, although it’s unclear if those would simply be testing versions for developers or a finished product for mass market. They are also working on an interface for the cube to work with mobile devices, where power consumption is particularly critical. Intel is also rumoured to be considering joining the consortium.

‘Vacuum Tube’ processor 12x faster than silicone based transistors.

Vacuum tubes were used in computers until around 50 years ago, when transistors were found to be able to be mass produced onto silicon more cheaply and effectively. Now vacuum tube techniques have been used again to create a device able to operate at up to 0.46 terahertz - more than 12 times faster than the latest Ivy Bridge range of processors from Intel which operate up to 3.8Ghz. 

…it is created by etching a tiny cavity in phosphorous-doped silicon. The cavity is bordered by three electrodes: a source, a gate, and a drain. The source and drain are separated by just 150 nanometers, while the gate sits on top. Electrons are emitted from the source thanks to a voltage applied across it and the drain, while the gate controls the electron flow across the cavity.

Because the device is so small in size, the team found they didn’t need a true vacuum to make it work, as the risk of electrons colliding with any atoms in the air is so low at the nanometre scale. This means they would be more suited to cheaper mass production.

This work is of particular interest to NASA and other space agencies, as traditional computers need to be radiation-proofed before leaving Earth’s atmosphere - this wouldn’t be a problem for the new device, potentially saving them time and money by enabling space-ready computers.

New technique developed to predict volcanic eruptions.

British researchers have discovered a way to more accurately predict when a volcano is about to erupt. Previously volcanologists could use models of earthquake activity and vented gasses to say a volcano was more likely to erupt, but the new method could be used to make more accurate predictions.

By analysing samples from past eruptions, the team discovered that a mineral crystal called orthopyroxene starts to build up in magma around a year before an eruption, peaking just before it erupts.

It’s likely that this technique could be refined and used to predict eruptions for any volcano in the world, however more work will be needed analysing the exact chemical fingerprints of eruption sequences to determine the timeline of events.

New scanner lets you create 3D scans of the real world.

Startup company MatterPort has shown off their 3D scanner, able to rapidly create maps of rooms by scanning the device around the space.

While the scanner is still under development, the company won’t say how much it will go on sale for except it will be “18 times cheaper” than competing devices (which typically retail for $30,000 to $50,000).

Check out the MatterPort website here.

T-rays used to transmit data at 3GB/s.

Japanese researchers have created a proof-of-principle device able to transmit data in the terahertz spectrum at record speeds of 3Gb/s. That’s around 20 times faster than 802.11n Wi-Fi used in the latest home electronics.

While the technology is likely to only work within ranges of about 10m, it could theoretically support speeds of up to 100Gb/s. 

At the heart of the team’s 1mm-square device is what is known as a resonant tunnelling diode, or RTD.

Tunnelling diodes have the unusual characteristic that the voltage across them can sometimes go down as current is increased.

RTDs are designed such that this process makes the diode “resonate”, which in the current work’s design means it sprays out waves in the terahertz band.

Graphic shows entire amount of water on Earth.

If you took all of the water on Earth and (somehow) made it into a sphere, it would be 1,385 kilometers in diameter, with a volume equal to about 1,386 million cubic kilometers.  

By comparison, the Earth measures a staggering 12,256 km in diameter, dwarfing the little blue sphere — a “little blue sphere” that contains more than enough water to cover over 70 percent of our planet’s surface, and fill every life form on Earth with H₂O molecules. (Those looking for a similar size comparison at home can use a basketball to represent the dry Earth, and a nickel to illustrate the diameter of our water sphere.)

Biggest full moon of the year, see it tonight.

The Lunar perigee is tonight (May 6), where the Moon reaches it’s closest point of orbit with Earth.

At 221,802 miles from Earth the Moon will be about 15,300 miles closer than average.
Full Moons vary in size because of the oval shape of the Moon’s orbit. It is an ellipse with one side (perigee) about 50,000 km closer to Earth than the other (apogee).

Nearby perigee moons are about 14% bigger and 30% brighter than lesser moons that occur on the apogee side of the Moon’s orbit.

The Moon appears biggest just after Moon rise, while it is low in the sky.

Transparent solar panels could replace your windows.

German startup company Heliatek are testing their flexible, transparent solar panels which could one day be built into houses to act as power-generating windows.

The panels are only able to convert around 8% of available energy into electricity, compared with around 12-17% for traditional solar panels, but the company claims that they are able to make up for that by providing better performance in low light and high heat to provide almost the same energy production overall.

The technology works by depositing a layer of organic molecules on polyester films, in a similar way to how OLED displays are produced.

The company recently started making a small amount of panels on a “proof of concept” production line, and say that within four to five years the cost should come down to  around 40 to 50 cents per watt, which will make them competitively priced compared to conventional solar panels. The new technology would also work out cheaper to install in new houses, as opposed to having to install windows as well as conventional solar panels on the roof.