Chip

This month marks the 50th anniversary of Intel's 4004 processor, the first commercially available microprocessor built on a single chip. Originally designed for a Japanese desk calculator, it helped spark the personal computer revolution.

Engineers at Columbia University have developed the smallest single-chip system ever created, which can be implanted with a hypodermic needle to measure temperature inside the body, and possibly much more.

Highlighting the march of technology, IBM has unveiled new semiconductor chips with the smallest transistors ever made. The new 2- nanometer tech allows the company to cram a staggering 50 billion transistors onto a chip the size of a fingernail.

Engineers have created one of the smallest memory storage devices ever, made out of a 2D material measuring 1 nanometer square. The device works on the movements of single atoms, paving the way for memory systems with incredible information density.

Engineers at EPFL have created a new computer chip that can both process and store data in the same circuit. It’s made using a two-dimensional material called molybdenum disulfide, paving the way for smaller and more energy efficient electronics.

Particle accelerators could be incredibly useful for medicine – if they weren’t so huge. Now, scientists at Stanford have managed to shrink the tech down to fit on a computer chip, which could lead to more precise cancer radiation therapies.

Engineers have recently focused on trying to emulate the structure of the brain with artificial synapses. Now, a team of researchers have made a new artificial synapse design that works using a light-based biotechnology technique called optogenetics.

We're growing more accustomed to the idea of talking to our devices, thanks to the success of products like Amazon Echo. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were inspired to create a low-powered chip designed specifically for automatic speech recognition.

With little more than a standard inkjet printer, some silicone, and a sheet of polymer film, Stanford researchers have created a reusable diagnostic "lab on a chip" that costs just 1 cent to make. This new technology could help vastly improve disease detection worldwide.

A new graphene-based sensor has been developed that can quickly and easily detect DNA mutations associated with a range of cancers and other life-threatening illnesses. It is envisaged that the sensor will eventually be implantable, and communicate data wirelessly to mobile devices in real-time.

Scientists have managed to embed miniature supercapacitors within a microchip, using methods compatible with standard electronics manufacturing. The advance could allow future electronics to marry the benefits of batteries and supercapacitors on the same device.

A new chip design could lead to massively parallel, energy efficient computation that handles complex tasks like pattern recognition better and faster than ever before.