The nano-data processing is a Néologisme which introduces new architectures of the systems Informatique S and the numerical electronic . Based on the technology of the Silicon or on radical alternatives, they have as a characteristic to exploit (for whole or part) the Molécule S themselves like basic elements of the futures Ordinateur S. For reasons as much economic than technical, one regards their development as inescapable.

The fate of the law of Moore

The Semi-conducteur S supported progress of the computers during the 50 last years. One half-century during which the integrated circuits did not cease seeing their power increasing. But these performances will end ineluctably up reaching their physical limits. Which will be then the new ways of development for systems increasingly more powerful, increasingly more present?

The essence of this question lies in the fate of the Loi of Moore and the transition from the Microélectronique to the Nanotechnologies.

In ten years, the Informatique will have become basically different. Not as it was it regularly, each decade since fifty years, but more radically, for reasons which touch with its deep roots:

The semiconductors supported progress of the computers during the last half-century. From here 10 to 12 years (i.e before 2020), this material technology will have evolved/moved until its physical limits. Then, either our machines will have definitively reached their power Asymptotique and only future progress will be related to the applicative innovation, it is to say only progress of the software and the manner of using a given technology (it is the pessimistic scenario), or it will exist a technology of substitution, radical, which will again authorize a joint progression of the performances of the material and applications.

The nano-data processing is a very wide interdisciplinary field which gathers various, complementary or concurrent technologies such as the use of the nanotubes in the molecular transistors, data processing DNA (Ordinateur with DNA), the quantum information systems (cf quantum Calcul),… The industrial use of the term “nano-data processing” with habit to also cover the manufactoring processes of the electronics industry and data-processing of the 21e century which introduce in particular with the systems ubiquitaires and with diffuse data processing.

The nano-data processing will introduce a major transformation into the world of the company and the daily life (like made in its time compromise data processing and the PC): impact on the activities of coding and implementation of the systems in the company, opportunities economic, change of the trades, etc

Components nanometric with the car-organization of complex molecular systems

The first components nanometric (i.e. on the scale of the molecule, where operate the quantum phenomena) already were born in our laboratories. Conscious of the absolutely vital character of this technology, large operators of the die of silicon (Intel, IBM,…) appear among the large pioneers of the field. They explore in particular the dies of the Nanotube S of carbon.

But what is realizable on the testing grounds of the laboratories on a unit scale, is still far from being applicable within the framework of complex circuits and even less, from the point of view of an industrial production. The main reason is the difficulty of integration of several hundreds of million these devices within the same chip, following the example our Microprocesseur S current (let us recall that by 2015, they are 15 billion Transistor S which it will then be advisable to integrate on the same chip).

The nanotechnology with the historical direction of the term, simply does not consist in carrying out objects with molecular dimensions. The fundamental idea borrows from sciences of living the principle of the Car-organization in complex systems. I.e. building blocs which according to the destination of the device, are able to be assembled themselves in the shape of a more complex device starting from a simple external macroscopic instruction. It is there the main challenge and the source of the polemical debates which feed the scientific and technical scene to date.

Since nature can build such machines and that the Molecular biology and the genetic engineering already investigué these principles, another way also opens for the computers of the future: that of the organic molecular electronics which exploits an alive material such as a Protéine for example, and re-uses it in an artificial environment, to provide a function of calculation or a function of memory for example.

Transistor FET with carbon nanotubes (CNFET)

The Transistor with field effect to Nanotube (CNFET or “ Carbon Nanotube Field Effect Transistor ”) uses a nanotube of the semiconductor type as a channel, through which the electron S can circulate in a controlled way, according to whether one applies or not, a potential difference on a third electrode.

The current of order applied to the electrode spoils allows for example, to vary the conductivity of the channel source-drain by a factor million and even more, such as the fact a transistor FET conventional from the die silicon.

Hybrid monomolecular electronic circuits

These devices use only one molecule or very weak by component. It is about a process Hybride, because the electronic circuit is carried out by inter-connecting elementary molecular components (i.e. “equivalent-transistors”, each one realized with a single molecule) by tiny conducting bits Métallique S.

Organic molecular electronics

This approach uses the properties of an alive material where biological molecules are extracted from their natural context and are re-used in a foreign environment to make a different artificial use of it. One thus uses a material living at “not-biological” ends completely.

The development of new devices of storage able to store several tens of terabytes in tiny cubes of a few Cm3 (datacubes), are one of the pionnières applications of this die. Exploiting the properties of the Bactériorhodopsine, a Protein sensitive to the light genetically modified and discovered in the membrane of a alive Microbe in the salt-water marshes, this one is able to capture and store the light, to convert it into energy, by a series of chemical conversions of the molecules which compose it. Exposed to the light, these molecules pass in an “intermediate” state, before returning, after a certain amount of time, in their country of origin. By modifying the DNA which is at the origin of this protein, one can obtain this one which it preserves the “intermediate” state, instead of returning all alone in its country of origin.

The Bactériorhodopsine interests thus the industry of the Data storage, insofar as it could be used as controllable storage unit extremely miniaturized by luminous impulses (at a rate of a Bit per molecule, a disc 12 centimetres in diameter could contain from 20 to 50 To).

Nano-data processing and Ambient Intelligence

The computer of the decade to come is thus in full change. The new processors inherited the conventional generation of the semiconductors, gradually will cross the architectures borrowed from the technologies Organique S or equipped with the first molecular components. The memory S will follow the same way of miniaturization to the molecular scales. The devices of storage of mass from now on will store in three dimensions (in proteins or crystals) what they stored until there in two dimensions on the surface of an optical disk or magnetic. But these magnetic disks, just like the components with silicon, however continue to improve by exploiting the quantum phenomena.

The Mobilité introduced another need: that of energy autonomy. The chemical batteries are made punts like a sheet of paper, light and increasingly more powerful. The new generation of ambient and communicating objects explores new approaches: food using the molecules of ATP like the living beings, of the micro engines with combustion, or of the nuclear microbatteries good distant from our conventional piles.

These ambient microphone-objects, diffused with deepest of the real-world are able to communicate between them and with the users in the most natural way. That wants to say that the interfaces between the users and the machine are not limited any more to our simple keyboards, mouse and screens, but use from now on our five directions. Certain interfaces are even freed to pass by these directions, since the neuraux systems or telepathic control are already a reality. It is not the eye which sees, it is the brain!

The vast network of tiny and heterogeneous objects that the new generation of capillary distributed systems constitutes (the Ambient Intelligence or ambient networks of ojets), imposes a new vision of the Logiciel. The trades of data processing must adapt. The development and the maintenance of the applications are not limited any more to one finished unit of programs to the important lifespans, but must take into account a vast perimeter of Microsystème S interacting the ones on the others, of an incredible diversity and in a context where, as in the world living once again, instability and the evolution are the rule.