QUANTUM COMPUTER - A DREAM MACHINE! |
Computer is the information-processing machine that
processes the input information to gives out the required output information. The input
information are fed in the user's language and then converted to the machine language for
the processing of the available information and then reconverted back to the users'
language for the users' understanding and requirement. The fact that a real computer is a
physical system prompts us to think about the space, time and energy implications of
trying to make computers faster. To make computers faster, their components have to be
squeezed closer together because the signals that need to be passed around inside the
computer cannot travel faster than the speed of light. However, size is not the only
issue. The components inside conventional computers give off a certain amount of heat as a
side effect of their operation. If the components are simply packed closer together
without also improving the energy efficiency the computer will melt itself as it computes!
Solving either of these problems helps; solving both will be essential to achieve further
miniaturization and speedup. Currently the computer industry is heading towards the
exponential increase of transistors per chip and the memory capacity of a chip
approximately doubled every one and half years even though a chip remained physically
about the same size. Simultaneously the speed of the chips has been increasing
exponentially. Extrapolating this trend suggests that the computers available in 2020 will
operate at about 40 GHz! |
Courtesy : Th.
Joykumar Singh Research Fellow Indian Institute of Science Bangalore |
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