Monday, July 02, 2012
Vacuum's revenge
Mr Triode triumphs at last!
After a long interregnum, researchers have finally realized that the shortest and quickest and least noisy path from cathode to anode is through a vacuum.
Mr Triode already knew that.
Tubes went out of fashion because silicon devices required no heat, which meant they could become extremely small and use very little power; which in turn made vastly more complex circuits possible.
These new vacuum devices are intrinsically tiny, which means no heat is needed. In a 'macroscopic' tube you have to heat the cathode to get a large supply of loose electrons that can travel half an inch to the anode. In the new 'microscopic' version, the gap is so small that the charge difference suffices to yank a few electrons across the miniature space.
If silicon hadn't intervened, I suspect vacuum-tube computers would have developed naturally. Toward the end of the vacuum era, tubes were getting smaller, thus requiring less heat. There were some cold-cathode tubes as well, which were more switch-like than the usual triode. Mix those two trends and you can see how the tube might have gone micro without passing through the silicon stage.
Mr Triode triumphs at last!
After a long interregnum, researchers have finally realized that the shortest and quickest and least noisy path from cathode to anode is through a vacuum.
Mr Triode already knew that.
Tubes went out of fashion because silicon devices required no heat, which meant they could become extremely small and use very little power; which in turn made vastly more complex circuits possible.
These new vacuum devices are intrinsically tiny, which means no heat is needed. In a 'macroscopic' tube you have to heat the cathode to get a large supply of loose electrons that can travel half an inch to the anode. In the new 'microscopic' version, the gap is so small that the charge difference suffices to yank a few electrons across the miniature space.
If silicon hadn't intervened, I suspect vacuum-tube computers would have developed naturally. Toward the end of the vacuum era, tubes were getting smaller, thus requiring less heat. There were some cold-cathode tubes as well, which were more switch-like than the usual triode. Mix those two trends and you can see how the tube might have gone micro without passing through the silicon stage.
Labels: 20th century Dark Age
¶ 6:48 AM
