For more than 40 years the silicon industry has delivered ever faster, cheaper chips. The advances have underpinned everything from the rise of mobile phones to digital photography and portable music players.
As a result, researchers around the world are engaged in efforts to allow the industry to continue delivering the advances that computer users have come to expect.
Already new materials are creeping into modern chips. Key areas include advanced fabrication techniques, building new components to augment silicon.
IBM researchers are working on materials that they believe offer even bigger advances: "Carbon nanotubes are a step beyond [hafnium]," explained Dr Phaedon Avouris of the company.
Moore's Law> Image: Carbon nanotubes
- Transistors fitting in a chip for a fixed cost, doubles every two years
- First outlined by Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel
- Published in Electronics Magazine on 19 April, 1965
> Via BBC News Technology
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