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IMAGE: The postage-stamp sized chip at the heart of an iPhone 5 has around one billion transistors.
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Credit: Errol Hunt (FLEET)
New FLEET research confirms the potential for topological materials to substantially reduce the energy consumed by computing.
The collaboration of FLEET researchers from University of Wollongong, Monash University and UNSW have shown in a theoretical study that using topological insulators rather than conventional semiconductors to make transistors could reduce the gate voltage by half, and the energy used by each transistor by a factor of four.
To accomplish this, they had to find a way to overcome the famous 'Boltzmann's tyranny' that puts a lower limit on transistor switching energy.