Though Apple has been able to create a music player, phone and internet communications device, the real beauty of the device is that they are able to incorporate a PC level operating system, a stripped down version of the one used in the Mac computers to operate these devices. The interesting thing here about the iPhone is that we are starting to see the emergence of hand held computing devices. Complete with memory, video display, data storage and networking capabilities. In the future I expect to see far more powerful hand held devices that may one day change the way we think of portable computers.
The main hold up of computer miniaturization is the integration of discrete integrated chips. Integrated chips are a made of thin silicon wafers with patterns of transistors and logic circuits which are currently being fabricated on the nano-scale level; for example Intel is currently able to fabricate feature sizes of about 65 nm with is on the order of 1/200th of the diameter of your hair. On chips, less than 1 cm square, they are able to fit in 200-300 million transistors. That is an incredible number for such a small chip.
Though the semi-conducting industry is able to accomplish such feats of miniaturization, the biggest problem (in more ways than one) outstanding is the integration of these chips to create a single computing system. Computers are manufactured out of a considerable number integrated circuit parts including a CPU, memory controller, I/O controller, BIOS chip, video chips, sound chips and etc. Though these integrated circuits, comprised of nano-sized circuitry are incredibly small for the functionality they provide, the problem remains that these chips require external circuitry and signals to operate properly. Some of these chips use external parts like resistors and capacitors to configure how they operate or just need external parts to ensure that they work properly. The problem is that these additional resistors and capacitors are quite large compared to these chips which take up a considerable amount of space, resulting in very large circuit boards to interface and operate these chips.
A picture of a small part of the inside of my laptop
Looking at the picture above, the black blocks are the integrated circuit chips and the much smaller bumps seen on the circuit board are the external components such as capacitors, resistors and diodes. which are used to run these chips. The green region on the circuit board consists of tracks of metal that connect each chip together and these tracks also take up a considerable amount of space.
What is needed in the future to reduce the amount of space to assemble a computer is to reduce the number of external components and reduce the amount of wiring needed to connect these chips together. The black chips you see in the picture contain a silicon wafer with circuity encased with an outer shell to protect it from dust particles and contaminants that might prevent the chip from operating properly.
What I would propose to further miniaturize computer, is to do away with the circuit board and find a way to integrate the silicon chips directly, probably on a silicon backed wafer where these chips can be mounted onto directly and closer together. The components that are needed to run these chips could possibly be fabricated directly onto the silicon wafter and can be inherently smaller than the discrete parts used. Finally with the silicon wafers assembled together the whole wafer with mounted chips can be packaged. The biggest challenge with integration like this is quality control as the silicon wafers are vulnerable to failure during the integration process and since the parts are small and fragile and susceptible to shorting and defects just from dust particles in air, even in a high level clean room.
Main board manufacturers are moving towards miniaturizing circuit boards by better design and parts integration. Taiwanese computer motherboard manufacturer has demonstrated that they are able to make a computer system smaller than a 3" hard drive.
Motherboard with integrated memory, CPU, hard drive I/O and video
If this is the direction that computers are going in the future, expect to find even more portable computers in the future. Eventually, we will deal away with the hard drive to make way for solid state memory (think flash memory) and CDs will go the way of the dinosaur, leaving your computer being more compact and all you may need is a touch screen to interact with your computing device on the go and hook it up to a large monitor, mouse and keyboard when you get to a desk somewhere.
If there is something that is going to get big in the future, I believe that it is going to be portable computing.
2 comments:
Great post. This, combined with user interface improvements (what's the use of having a 5cm by 5cm 'computer' when you need a whopping 15" FPD to use the thing) will result in truly hand-held computer systems. Although I'd like to try out my friend's iPhone and see how the progress is going with that.
The iPhone hasn't been released in Japan yet but from what I have read on the net, there is still work to be done on the thing. It's a first generation device, but I would expect things to improve (including their keyboard layout)
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