Sony Corp and a Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) electronics lab have reportedly developed a semiconductor just 20 nanometers in diameter – that’s 20 billionths of a meter – which works at 100GHz and consumes a twentieth of the power of conventional devices, according to Nihon Keizai Shimbun. In other words it processes data much faster, at room temperatures, than conventional devices. The part is made up of thin layers of indium arsenide and aluminum antimode, said to allow the quick movement of electrons, and is expected to find use as a signal switch in supercomputers and telecommunications equipment.
