Researchers at the University of Illinois have developed a new transistor that operates at 604GHz. It's less than half a millionth of a metre long and was developed by blending different semiconducting materials with individual layers.
Transistors are basic components within electronic circuits. They are used as tiny electronic switches or current amplifiers or for a variety of other tasks. Modern computer chips - like Intel's Pentium 4 - contain millions of individual transistors and the fundamental efficiency of these chips depends on the speed at which their transistors operate.