Quantum computer closer: Optical transistor made from single molecule

"over ten times smaller than standard transistors"?

10 times = 1,000% smaller. 100% smaller = no size at all. Perhaps you mean 90% smaller?

bmwynn

- July 8, 2009 @ 09:07 pm PDT

10 times bigger, means 10 times bigger, 10/1 = x10

10 times smaller is bad English but fine in maths, 10 times smaller

1/10 = x0.1 or a tenth of the size

Did you not learn fractions at school.

Philip Rowney

- July 9, 2009 @ 03:07 pm PDT

LOL 10x smaller = 10%

100% divided by 10 = 10%, there: ten times smaller is a feasible and possible amount, as is any amount. even 1000x smaller still works, it's just a tiny percentage!

Danny Hodgetts

- July 9, 2009 @ 11:07 pm PDT

100% smaller does not mean no size at all...you are just dividing the original size by 10. i't was x meters wide, now it ix x/10 meters wide...

chards

- July 10, 2009 @ 05:07 pm PDT

A more correct/concise way of putting it could be, "The molecule itself is about 2 nanometres in size; less than one tenth the size of standard transistors...".

That said, what is a 'standard transistor'? And I personally don't know of any chips in production using a 20nm process.

Intel's very latest desktop chips (Lynnfield and Clarksfield) will still be manufactured using the 45nm process (same as the Core range of chips), when they are launched later in 2009. After that they will move to a 32nm process, but we're still nowhere near 20nm transistors.

So with 45nm being the norm for the best chips currently available to the masses, perhaps the sentence should read, "The molecule itself is about 2 nanometres in size; less than one twentieth the size of today's smallest conventional transistors...".

Stuart Ross

- July 20, 2009 @ 02:07 pm PDT