Pushing computers to the limit:
BBC Online’s Spencer Kelly looks at the ever increasing speed of processors and wonders how long computers can keep getting faster.
If you look at current chip technology, the actual core component in the chip can only be about 25 atomic layers thick of silicon, and the problem is that you get jumps of electricity between different components.
It is estimated that sometime in the next decade, Moore’s Law will reach its final, impenetrable barrier – you cannot make a wire thinner than an atom.
