Recent Trends

in

Information

Technology

presentation

by

G.PRANAVATHIYANI

B.Sc Bioinformatics

Progress in miniaturization and computing

power in recent decades has been impressive.

But there are physical limits to the ways

electrons can be shunted around tiny circuits

in a wafer of silicon.

For this reason, researchers have been looking

into alternative technologies that might

someday deliver performance unthinkable

with traditional semiconductors.

Some of the most interesting approaches deal

with the very small—the world of molecules

and the even more minuscule subatomic realm

where the strange laws of quantum mechanics

come into play.

Molecules:

Among molecules with a high profile in

computer- technology research, the two most

intriguing are the carbon nanotube

and DNA(deoxyribonucleic acid), the basic

vehicle of heredity in the biological world.

Engineers have already developed carbon nanotube

transistors that can carry as much as 1,000 times the

current accommodated by the copper wires used in

silicon chips.

Today’s computer processors, however, may have a

billion transistors or more. Still to be solved are the

problems of how to make similarly enormous numbers

of high-quality nanotubes and how to arrange them in

circuits—while keeping costs down.

Nanotubes’ potential is enormous.

Their use in computer storage and memory devices

raises the prospect of ultra-high capacity hard drives

as well as fast random-access memory (RAM) that,

unlike today’s RAM chips, would not lose its contents

when the power is turned off.

Such storage devices could make possible instant-

booting computers, handheld computers with upwards

of 10 gigabytes of memory, and MP3 players that hold

exponentially more songs than today’s devices.

Meanwhile, in 2003 a pair of U.S. scientists

developed the first interactive DNA computing

system, an enzyme-driven device called MAYA

that played unbeatable tic-tac toe.

Its human opponent made moves by putting

DNA into little wells making up the game board;

each well contained enzymes that acted as “logic

gates” controlling the device’s response to the

input data.

Today’s encryption systems for protecting information

transmitted via such channels as the Internet tend to rely on

mathematical problems that would take an enormous —

hopefully unfeasible —amount of time and effort to solve.

For example, one of the most popular encryption methods,

called RSA (from the initials of its inventors), depends on

the fact that it is very hard to find the prime factors of a

very large number—that is, the prime numbers that

produce the number when multiplied by each other.

This approach works for now, but what if mathematicians

make a breakthrough? As it happens, one of the most

celebrated unsolved problems in mathematics, the so-called

Riemann hypothesis, deals with the pattern that might lurk

behind the seeming randomness of prime numbers.

The keys required for encrypting and

decrypting messages are represented in this

instance by a pattern

of particles of light, or photons, with

certain characteristics.

Interception by an eavesdropper will leave

obvious traces, revealing that the key has

been detected.