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University of Michigan develops quantum processor
Work undertaken at the University of Michigan has resulted in the creation of a quantum processor that contains one cadmium ion. This ion can exist in many possible states which collapse into a single one when observed by an outsider, and is suspended in electrical fields. The chip itself is composed of gallium arsenide, and was made using the same microlithography process that many modern processors are made of.
"We levitate the atom in the chip by applying certain electrical signals to the tiny nearby electrodes," explained Professor Christopher Monroe, University of Michigan Physics professor and co-inventor of the chip. While other researchers use neutral atoms, Monroe's chip traps ions - atoms with missing or extra electrons - on his chip.
Quantum computing is seen as a great leap forward in computing – a kind of Holy Grail of sorts. However, Quantum processors will probably not find their way into a computer near you any time soon – apart from being highly experimental (not to mention hideously expensive), they can excel in computations involving waveform analysis or cryptography, but perform poorly when tasked with such applications as Microsoft Word or checking email.
"We levitate the atom in the chip by applying certain electrical signals to the tiny nearby electrodes," explained Professor Christopher Monroe, University of Michigan Physics professor and co-inventor of the chip. While other researchers use neutral atoms, Monroe's chip traps ions - atoms with missing or extra electrons - on his chip.
Quantum computing is seen as a great leap forward in computing – a kind of Holy Grail of sorts. However, Quantum processors will probably not find their way into a computer near you any time soon – apart from being highly experimental (not to mention hideously expensive), they can excel in computations involving waveform analysis or cryptography, but perform poorly when tasked with such applications as Microsoft Word or checking email.
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User Comments (31)
Post a comment| fiziks on January 18, 2006 9:47 PM | i love it... doesn't it seem like you could use this to
create artificial logic?
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| fiziks on January 18, 2006 9:57 PM | i think this could and should be used for something way
beyond storage and personal computing
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| cyrax on January 18, 2006 10:58 PM | The future of conventional processors have been in doubt for
a while now, so it is nice to see the boundries are being
expanded to this exciting feild.
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| MonkeyMan on January 18, 2006 11:46 PM | Man, a processor that has the potential to be a monster, but
yet cannot browse through Microsoft word, and email quickly?
well, on one side of the spectrum, it sounds good. But on
the other, it quite disappointing. For me, I'm just waiting
for a PC that can perform tasks instantly, with no wait at
all.
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| yoyomama on January 18, 2006 11:51 PM | " they can excel in computations involving
waveform analysis or cryptography, but perform poorly when
tasked with such applications as Microsoft Word or checking
email. " ... never realized how much of a resource hog Word was. Anyhoo, I would love to overclock one of these babies. Water cooling, performance RAM... and of course, quantum processors
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| vigilante on January 19, 2006 12:25 AM | Two good points mentioned in the comments. One about
storage. This is where I eagerly await the next break
through. We need storage that is far mare reliable, larger,
and MUCH faster then what we have now. And someone mentioned having a PC where every task happens right away. That has always been my dream as well. And permenent storage is one LARGE leap to get us there. It is the largest bottleneck a PC has. Your computer can only run as fast as it can pull data off the HDD into RAM and processed. What would a PC be like if a CPU's CACHE RAM was 2GB and the main RAM was actually your permenent storage? Imagine how fast the PC would be communicating with the "HDD" at the speed of RAM, and communicating with RAM at the speed of cache?! Perhaps quantum can get us there?
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| iNoob on January 19, 2006 12:42 AM | Originally posted by vigilante: This is
where I eagerly await the next break through. We need
storage that is far mare reliable, larger, and MUCH faster
then what we have now. A breakthrough has
already been made. Check this
out.http://www.inphase-technologies.com/technology / A process is only as fast as the slowest step so unless the speed of RAM is able to catch up with quatum computing, we're going to be stuck with speeds not much faster than what we currently have due to the bottleneck in the RAM. There is no point of having INSANE processing speed when the RAM is slow. All y'all ppl researching RAM technology listen up: YOU BETTER BE PREPARED FOR QUANTUM COMPUTING!!!!
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| exscind on January 19, 2006 1:59 AM | Quantum processors really won't find a way in a home PC
anytime soon. Quantum processing doesn't use the
conventional boolean (binary) computing used currently. If
cultivated, sure it would extend everything as we know it,
kind of like opening a new dimension. Quantum processing
uses multivariable forms to accomplish calculations, which
becomes more convoluted when the processor has to make
checks into each action it performs. At the moment, it is
only useful for a few task-specific actions which utilizes
the features of quantum computing; anything else is either a
waste of its abilities or even performs worse in comparison
to a normal PC because of the unconventional checksums.
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| AeonXX on January 19, 2006 5:24 AM | As stunning as this new development in technology is, it may
never reach the consumer market. When I was in college, I
was fortunate enough to view two presentations on
holographic storage, and that is something that we will
surely see in a consumer market. According to the presenter,
the entire Library of Congress could be placed onto a single
holographic disc in binary format. Also, to vigilante whom
posted about RAM being used as permanent storage, you may
want to look into a program called Virtual Hard Drive. This
Windows application is capable of enabling portions of
system memory to be emulated as a hard disk drive itself. In
short, this means files placed into this virtual hard drive
can be accessed in nanoseconds, versus
milliseconds. I’m not surprised at all to find that quantum processing would be ineffective in tandem with typical user applications. Awhile back, I worked at a small computer shop called SpaceCenter Systems that sold various computer components, one of which were video cards. There were high-end video cards for sale by Nvidia, ATI, and Matrox, and the most costly was manufactured by Matrox. A misguided customer purchased the Matrox video card, thinking that because it was more expensive than the Nvidia 7800 GT, that it would out-perform it in Doom 3. Needless to say, he was not a happy customer. The moral of that story, as I perceive it to be, is things aren’t always what they seem. I’m sure quantum processors will have a very specialized use in a variety of scientific fields, and in spite of my insatiable gaming needs, I realize it’s better left that way.
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| bbdude on January 19, 2006 7:10 AM | Whoa, weird. I guess since it's quantum computing, it's kind
of cool.
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| asphix on January 19, 2006 7:40 AM | This whole thing makes me think of Stargate SG1. Maybe its
because I've been running a marathon watching all the
seasons (1 - 7) for the past month.  Anyway, sounds really cool but I agree that this will probably never reach into the consumer market. At least not anytime soon.. and by that I mean not in the next 20 years. Its too wide a gap to jump so the adoption of the technology, compatability with software already out there and software to be developed would dig it an early grave. I could see the US military and scientific organizations putting it to some good use though.
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| barfarf on January 19, 2006 8:22 AM | Quantum computers great scott! I am surprised no one have
mentioned the HAL 9000 "I'm completely operational, and all
my circuits are functioning perfectly. " Gotta love
technology. The above users were right that this would
not be for consumer application but as Asphix it would be
useful the for goverments and the scientific community.
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| fiziks on January 19, 2006 8:55 AM | what if somebody were to simulate this ion in a computer
program?... or create a program that works using the same
means
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| Cartz on January 19, 2006 9:52 AM | Definately a cool development, however, I reckon that this
quantum computer would be historically comparable to
pre-UNIVAC binary computers from 50 years ago. Still a very
very long way to go before we see any world shaping results
from this discovery. Fiziks, you're wondering why this cannot be simulated in a computer program... Well the beauty of quantum computing is that it gets us away from the 1s and 0s approach of conventional computing, so simulating this with conventional hardware would be just as, if not more, inefficient then emulating x86 programs on a quantum platform... There definately needs to be developments to other areas of hardware before this puppy can really shine though. Someone mentioned RAM, which is definately true, we will need to develop quantum RAM to use with our quantum processors. This is not that difficult... My question, which I've never seen addressed, is how are they going to facilitate communication between the processor in RAM? Conventional PCBs would prove a significant bottleneck, because not only would they have to carry more data, but the actual transmission time between source and destination would become significant. Many interesting developments sure to be made in this field. By the end of my generations lifetime quantum computing will be something to behold.
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| fiziks on January 19, 2006 10:11 AM | hm..
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| DragonMaster on January 19, 2006 10:23 AM | For me, I'm just waiting for a PC that can perform
tasks instantly, with no wait at all. Buy a really
old computer, it can!
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| spike on January 19, 2006 11:18 AM | Originally posted by
fiziks: hm.. Perhaps a little more
importantly, it cannot be simulated on a computer because to
calculate one quantum calculation would take millionjs if
not billions of calculations on a current binary X86
machine. The quantum world is like that, endless
possibilities.More importantly again, even if you could simulate it on a computer, it would only work untill you looked at it, at which point the simulation would revert to a single result. Try telling THAT to Windows or Linux!  edit: not withstanding of course, that evidently a quantum calculation isn't the same thing as an x86 one. [Edited by spike on 2006-01-19 12:18:52]
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| fiziks on January 19, 2006 11:32 AM | i wish there was some extensively detailed documentation
available somewhere describing exactly how it works...
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| PanicX on January 19, 2006 12:15 PM | Very cool. With this type of technology in the hands of big
brother, he can decrypt our communications on the fly.
Looks like this can have a major impact on secure
communications in the future.
|
| mentaljedi on January 19, 2006 12:22 PM | we've been stuck with the same old RAM for a while. 5 years
ago, you could upgrade to 2GB max. Now, you can upgrade to
2GB max. Ummm... where is the boom that we are seeeing with
processors an video cards?
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| PUTALE on January 19, 2006 12:42 PM | looks like it may have some promises, but the real usage
still need some times to get a working system I think.
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| AeonXX on January 19, 2006 1:23 PM | I thought this was
interesting: HAL IBM Do you see the pattern? On the Big Brother comment, I can certainly see this technology being misused. Then again, it would seem any device could be used for good or bad purposes. Guns are a perfect example, they have the power to defend or destroy, but it’s left in the hands of the owner to decide how to wield that power.
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| exscind on January 19, 2006 1:25 PM | Originally posted by fiziks: i wish there
was some extensively detailed documentation available
somewhere describing exactly how it works... Much of
it are still in experimental phases. First, the
scientists/engineers don't know fully know everything
themselves, so it would be difficult to document. Second,
this is hot stuff in case you haven't realized by now! Why
publish anything so other companies would chime in on your
monopoly?And someone said it above: To produce a quantum computer would require a redesign of every component. All the hardwares that we use now are in binary, which limits and nullifies the purpose of quantum processing in the first place. In other words, engineers and scientists have to rebuild the computer architecture from the ground up, which is no small feat.
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| jassim on January 19, 2006 2:00 PM | Two things: 1. Isn't the chip made of gallium arsenide? Meaning it contains arsenic, and it's deadly poisonous!! Most of us here (excluding me) are tweakers and overclockers, so we would just open up the case (how big would it be?) and check out the processor and stuff and, how many poisoning cases? 2. It took soooooooooooo much time to develop the PCI-Express port to shift from AGP. And that's only an upgrade. Imagine rebuilding an entire system from scratch (exclude the processor, it's already made!). So let's wait about 10-15 years or so to let it slowly develop and another 2-3 years for it to adapt into our homes.
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| Vaulden on January 19, 2006 3:27 PM | With the cost, materials, and architecture issues involved
in this I don't think it enter our homes anytime soon. And
while it has its flaws at current, we all know nothing in
computing is perfect the first time around. Changes are
always made to improve on the original design.
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