Today’s technology trend is all about small; specifically nanotubes. Nanotubes are structures made out of carbon atoms arranged in microscopically small tubes. And they hold high promise for many uses from a new generation of cancer treatment down to better electronic devices.
For computing, the significance of breakthroughs in nanotube technology comes from the fact that we have reached the limits of Moore’s Law – which states “that over the history of computing hardware, the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles approximately every two years”. It’s recently been predicted by companies such as IBM that Moore’s Law will cease to be true in the near future unless new technologies emerge (like nanotubes).
The integration of nanotubes into electronic devices is still a long-term application with the prospect of commercial products beyond the ten-year time frame. This is due to a variety of challenges related to the extremely small size and blazing speed they possess. For instance, nanotubes are so much faster than current technology, the other components like memory and hard drives could become a bottleneck for the processing speeds.
Ultimately the uses for nanotubes depends on whether or not they can be easily produced on a widespread scale. This will determine the price, and how they will be used in consumer and commercial technology. However, there is no doubt that nanotube processing will massively change engineering architecture, networking, and technologies as we know it today.