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Veritasium
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These resources have been reviewed and selected by STEM Learning’s team of education specialists for factual accuracy and relevance to teaching STEM subjects in UK schools.
Transistors and the end of Moore's law
This video reviews how transistors work and introduces Moore’s law, i.e., the number of transistors fitted onto a chip increases exponentially with time.
This means that the size of the transistor must reduce significantly. However, as the buffer zone (prevents current flowing) between n-type semiconductors is reduced to just a few atoms, quantum tunnelling becomes a problem. The challenge for this type of computer is to find a way to increase the potential barrier between n-types and so prevent electron tunnelling.
The new quantum computers are not affected by Moore’s law because they use quantum effects to work.
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