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Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator

economist.com

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Re: Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator

#61

Post by TwoPhonesOneKid »

almostgotcaught wrote: post #57
TwoPhonesOneKid wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no there aren't. there just aren't. You do realize we all know it's impossible to have any degree of certainty in asserting the non-existence of something, right?

> You do realize we all know it's impossible to have any degree of certainty in asserting the non-existence of something, right? I love condescension that is so petty it's laughable. As the commenters said below there are very well-understood precedents/principles that allow me to conclude "no" here eg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot So no it's not "impossible to have any degree of certainty in ass…

Probablility and statistics are models that produce something we call certainty. This has no relation to actual certainty, aka knowledge. If you're making an abductive claim, you should state it as an abductive claim. Otherwise you're simply claiming true knowledge that is literally impossible to have.

Re: Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator

#62

Post by fooker »

almostgotcaught wrote: post #44
fooker wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you can absolutely make specialized chips that are orders of magnitude better than the commercial state of the art if you don't care about mass production or operational costs. I can bet there are superconductor/photonics/topologically different/strange memory/smaller process size prototypes around. Right now we are getting to the limits of transistor sizes, but even a couple of years ago experimental prototypes…

> No, you can absolutely make specialized chips proof? i'm just like... where? where do you think people are making these chips and using which ovens? > smaller process size prototypes around no there aren't. there just aren't. you could hide this in your basement about as easily as you could hide building your own space shuttle (and launching).

> no there aren't. there just aren't.

There's no hiding anything here. You can find random articles about publicity stunts companies used to try based on these. Specifically when IBM was in the game, and Intel until they got butchered by incompetence.

Re: Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator

#63

Post by fooker »

artemonster wrote: post #37
fooker wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you can absolutely make specialized chips that are orders of magnitude better than the commercial state of the art if you don't care about mass production or operational costs. I can bet there are superconductor/photonics/topologically different/strange memory/smaller process size prototypes around. Right now we are getting to the limits of transistor sizes, but even a couple of years ago experimental prototypes…

where you get this nonsense? I am from semicon industry, so please, sources for the claim "orders of magnitude better"

Look at the history of 5nm process for example, from the first prototypes to mass production.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_nm_process

Re: Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator

#64

Post by fooker »

adastra22 wrote: post #46
fooker wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why though?

Why is it hard? You need to be able to position things with sub-angstrom precision from a platform that has ~nm uncertainty in the critical z positioning, and in the case of nc-AFM is oscillating to boot. And you can’t use existing tools. You need an atomically precise scanning probe tip with very specific reactive chemical structure, but NOT react with the surface while scanning with a voltage bias. And where do you…

No, why try doing this?

Re: Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator

#65

Post by adastra22 »

kev009 wrote: post #49
adastra22 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we cannot. IBM moved neutral atoms around on an inert surface. No one has demonstrated building covalent structures (or metallic, or ionic for that matter). My startup is trying to do this, and it is a fiendishly hard problem.

Is this "we" you and your startup or all of humanity? There are a variety of published papers that show simple memories and other structures that are way outside my domain knowledge (qd transistors?).

No one has ever demonstrated the synthesis of atomically precise structures by positional chemistry.

Quantum dots are not mechanosynthesized, or even atomically precise in many/most instances.

Re: Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator

#66

Post by adastra22 »

fooker wrote: post #64
adastra22 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it hard? You need to be able to position things with sub-angstrom precision from a platform that has ~nm uncertainty in the critical z positioning, and in the case of nc-AFM is oscillating to boot. And you can’t use existing tools. You need an atomically precise scanning probe tip with very specific reactive chemical structure, but NOT react with the surface while scanning with a voltage bias. And where do you…

No, why try doing this?

In the long run, this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bw6Zi17DBI

The story of technological progress is one of shrinking feature sizes in manufacturing. Not just semiconductors, but everything. The Industrial Revolution is really the story of higher tolerance and more reliable manufacturing pins.

You can explore the physical limits of technology by looking at what happens when we reach perfect atomic precision--every atom where we want, in any configuration permitted by physical law. Across nearly every vertical, this represents a 100x to 1000x improvement. In some cases factors of 10^8 to 10^12 over present-day capabilities.

Developing a process to build structures atom-by-atom (essentially 3D printing diamond or other gemstone materials with atomic precision) would enable skipping to these theoretical limits, with the corresponding step function increase in functionality.

It would also move our technological base off being based on rare metals and alloys, and onto an industrial economy built on carbon (diamond and graphene), and other elements commonly available in the Earth's crust and atmosphere. After 3,000 years we will finally move from the Iron Age to the Diamond Age, and with it bring an eventual end to material scarcity and the economic basis for global conflict. You'd seriously need to go back as far as the invention of agriculture or Bronze Age or early Iron Age metallurgy to find a comparably transformative technological advancement.

Within the VC-fundable horizon of the next couple years, early versions of this manufacturing tech will permit making high-value quantum devices like sensors or qubits, as these can be manufactured by introducing certain defects into a growing crystal, with atomic precision relative to other defects or surface features.

Re: Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator

#67

Post by TwoPhonesOneKid »

TwoPhonesOneKid wrote: post #61
almostgotcaught wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You do realize we all know it's impossible to have any degree of certainty in asserting the non-existence of something, right? I love condescension that is so petty it's laughable. As the commenters said below there are very well-understood precedents/principles that allow me to conclude "no" here eg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot So no it's not "impossible to have any degree of certainty in ass…

Probablility and statistics are models that produce something we call certainty. This has no relation to actual certainty, aka knowledge. If you're making an abductive claim, you should state it as an abductive claim. Otherwise you're simply claiming true knowledge that is literally impossible to have.

Too late to edit, but probability and statistics do emphatically rely on past-certainty. The entire concept of using the past to predict the future, however, is just a convenience with no reasonable basis. Please appropriately hedge your comments as to not imply otherwise or be appropriately mocked in response.

This is precisely why I don't trust people who aver without receipts to show. Open the schools, goddammit!

Until I see some reasonable evidence that smaller process size cannot exist, i just see lazy people getting angry that someone disagrees with them. All of this "burden of proof" bullshit, aping like you're in some kind of formal debate rather than a conversation with a stranger, just screams "emotional asshole who can't deal with someone disagreeing with them and never learned how to engage in basic conflict resolution when they had the ability to engage in good faith and chose not to".

Y'all deserve all the mockery society can afford. I'm at least honest in that I see conflict is what we need more than ever if only to put people like you in your place.

Re: Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator

#68

Post by muhdeeb »

adastra22 wrote: post #66
fooker wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, why try doing this?

In the long run, this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bw6Zi17DBI The story of technological progress is one of shrinking feature sizes in manufacturing. Not just semiconductors, but everything. The Industrial Revolution is really the story of higher tolerance and more reliable manufacturing pins. You can explore the physical limits of technology by looking at what happens when we reach perfect atomic precision--eve…

What’s the plan for dealing with cosmic rays? I worry about when your beautiful angstrom-precision qubit networks encounter a relativistic proton or muon.

Re: Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator

#69

Post by defrost »

muhdeeb wrote: post #68
adastra22 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the long run, this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bw6Zi17DBI The story of technological progress is one of shrinking feature sizes in manufacturing. Not just semiconductors, but everything. The Industrial Revolution is really the story of higher tolerance and more reliable manufacturing pins. You can explore the physical limits of technology by looking at what happens when we reach perfect atomic precision--eve…

What’s the plan for dealing with cosmic rays? I worry about when your beautiful angstrom-precision qubit networks encounter a relativistic proton or muon.

At near surface level ( 80m above ground in clear dry air ) 42 litres of doped Sodium Iodide scintillation crystal will experience ~ one to two thousand gamma events a second .. most of relatively low energy (and ground sourced).

The fall off from low orbit to surface is substantial in both event numbers and energy level.

The higher energy cosmic sourced events at surface level are down in the hundred or less a second (IIRC).

If there's a plan it'd likely include having 9x redundancy hardware surrounded by water deep in a former salt mine .. that'd take cosmic ray events way down and provide a (best of three) x (tell me three times) "just in case" statistical sharpening.

Re: Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator

#70

Post by JimBlackwood »

russellbeattie wrote: post #25
JimBlackwood wrote: post #13

Funny, we asked why they didn’t use a cyclotron during an ASML visit Things would get a bit radioactive at those energies, though.

Lead is cheap, right? Very cool you visited ASML. Anything exciting/interesting you'd be willing to tell the class?

Hah, I think there’s two things that stand out in my memory.

- They need 3 Boeing 737’s to ship an EUV machine. - We talked with one guy who’s responsibility it was to design one of the calibration points the machine uses to find it’s zero position. This left me amazed that they’re able to ship a machine halfway across the world, re-assemble it and calibrate it again to such accuracy. And! On top of that, make it reproducible over different machines!

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