There’s an increasing trend to start producing gadgets that are getting thinner and thinner with each generation. Heck, Motorola is set to unveil the Droid RAZR, which based on the legacy of the RAZR feature phone, will most probably end up being one of the thinnest smartphones to date. But how much smaller/thinner could be make our devices? Well if the scientists at Northwestern University manage to commercialize their new material, perhaps it won’t be too long.
The scientists have managed to develop a new nanoscale material that they claim will have the potential to allow computers to rewire themselves based on the user’s needs. For example chips could rewire themselves into a resistor, a rectifier, a diode, or a transistor, all of which are dependent on what the user or computer needs at the moment. This is achieved by placing a sea of negative atoms around the material, which when electrically charged will be reconfigured into whatever is needed at the moment to get the job done.
Based on this, it appears that the goal here is to reduce the amount of components needed in our devices, some of which may or may not be used often. By allowing the chip to rewire itself, less parts will be needed thus resulting in our devices in the future to have the potential of being thinner or smaller. If you think you could wrap your head around scientific/engineering jargon and speech, you can read more on this technology at Nature.com, although you would be required to have a membership.