That's just new research, whether it'll be viable as a commercial product remains to be seen.


That's not right. Those flash drive you mentioned are designed and built by third party companies, certainly not owned by the US government. Just that they are still US company for obvious security reasons. I don't think US Ministry of Defense can afford to design and maintain their own technology for everything they use, but not marketing it. Maybe that's how it works in the past (pre-WWII). AFAIK Intel *IS* currently still the leader in CPU.


Yes fully agree with empire23. Military emphasis is always on reliability and security.
Note that even though we say their technology isn't much better than consumer electronics, "most" consumer stuff available to public are cheaper low tech stuffs. Those leading edge components are usually only use in industrial/enterprise area as they are too expensive and not marketable to mass consumer.

---

Added on October 12, 2009, 2:59 pmNewer technology in IC design (still in research) involves adding nanometer scale mechanical parts onto the silicon layer itself. Or was it using some other different material than silicon.
The technology to build tiny projectors (small enough to pack into a handphone) is already here. Couple that with those projected keyboard technology, someone can build an ultra tiny mobile computer already.

This post has been edited by tgrrr: Oct 12 2009, 02:59 PM

What's relevant is the amount of space and heat-sinking capability.

Big candles spread out in a house has the whole area to spread it's heat to. Small candles in a tiny box can heat up the tiny box faster. When it reaches critical temperature junction, thermal runaway could occur where higher temperature creates more resistance which in turns generates more heat and the tiny box meltdown soon after.