Videos
Podcasts
Blogs
Quizzes
GamesPosts Tagged: ‘semiconductors’
You asked: How fast is the fastest microprocessor chip, now and in the future? Marshall Brain answers: Today, in 2011, the fastest microprocessor chips that are commercially available to “normal people” are the six-core hyperthreaded chips from Intel. These chips run at approximately 3.3 gigahertz and each core can execute two threads. If everything is [...]
Portable electronics make our lives easier, but there’s one drawback to hauling all your hardware with you — having to carry around a handful of electronics chargers as well. A company called Transphorm thinks it may have a solution. I first read about the company in an article in MIT’s Technology Review written by Kevin Bullis, who spoke with Transphorm’s cofounder and CEO, Umesh Mishra, to learn more about the new technology.
Blast from the Past – How Integrated Circuits (chips) Work
by Marshall Brain | January 24, 2011
The following video takes us back to Fairchild Semiconductors in 1967, as the age of integrated circuits is getting underway. It is talking about integrated circuits that contain 20 components (transistors, resistors, etc.), and therefore are far simpler than the billion-transistor chips we see today. It is also an era when the masks used to [...]
Here is an outstanding video that explains how the world’s first transistor works, as well as all subsequent transistors. This invention made possible everything from portable radios to the microprocessors that power modern society: Far more detail on transistors can be found in this lecture: This video demonstrates how transistors are created on chips: For [...]
This morning, FanStuff’s Tracy V. Wilson pointed out an article by Wired’s Priya Ganapati, in which she talks about a brand-new technology for digital camera image sensors. A California-based company named InVisage Technologies has created an image sensor that uses quantum dots rather than silicon as you’d find in the charged-couple device (CCD) or complementary silicon oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensors that predominate the digital camera industry.
Recent Postings by Category
BrainStuff
- Thank You and Best Wishes to Marshall Brain
- Contest – Design a $300 house and win $25,000
- How the Philtrum works – the place under your nose where your face comes together
The Coolest Stuff on the Planet
- Sailing, Takes Me Away…To The Seychelles
- Cute Animal Tuesday: Black Vulture
- Traveling on the Orient Express
Keep Asking
- Why can a 5 foot 8 inch man dunk a basketball on a 10 foot rim while some people of taller stature can’t?
- What happens to our sun once it runs out of fuel?
- How do we know the age of the universe?
Stuff Mom Never Told You
- Who invented the Christmas card?
- How the Kinsey Report Fueled Whiskey Sales
- How to Get Your Wedding Announcement into The New York Times
Stuff to Blow Your Mind
- The Seven Deadlies: Pride Cometh Before the Brain
- Warhammer 40K: 25 Years of Orks in Space
- A Visit to the Tellus Science Museum
Stuff You Should Know
- The Southern Death Cult, the Maya and Georgia
- Deformed Baby Spider Brains
- Amazing Medical Conditions: Maple Syrup Urine Disorder
The Stuff of Genius
CarStuff
- Was Chrysler’s “It’s Halftime in America” Super Bowl commercial a little too political?
- Why is NASA studying car safety?
- Tips for in-car Navigation Systems
How-to Stuff
- How to Make the Most of a Gallery Crawl (When You’re on a Shoestring Budget)
- How to Swim with Dolphins (When Deep Water Terrifies You)
- How to Cure a Homemade Cookie Craving Without Turning on the Oven
PopStuff
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 43: Drag Queens: You Better Work!
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 42: Road Trip!
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 41: Celebrity Couples
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know
Stuff to Change the World
- Who will own the Arctic?
- Obesity: The New Global Crisis
- Bill Gates Makes For A Pretty Decent Cartoon
Stuff You Missed in History Class
- Butch Cassidy: Should we read between the lines?
- Are we rooting for D.B. Cooper?
- Party Time: A Look at Unconventional Politics
