Computer: Expanse
By: Ayush Awasthi
Tags: Explained, Computer, Transistors, History

Hey! so here we are in present day. Last time we learnt how our computers evolved with time and got smarter. Computers got brains and are more friendly to humans. Computers are so well mixed in our routines that most of the time we don’t even think about the complex process running under it. And we don’t need to understand most of the time. Here’s what we have in today’s world:

Want to wake up early but don’t want to buy a clock specifically for alarms? Or you are one of those people who need multiple attempts to get up? No worries a mobile phone can do that(and much more.. read on..😉)

Now you say its a mobile phone, its not a computer 🤷🏻‍♂️ why are we talking about mobile phone in an article about computers?

Well my friend mobile phones are also computers, even those small wrist watch are now “smart” watches.

But how these came to be so small because when we last met, things were still the size to be placed on a table.

The answer is quiet simple, “Transistors”.

You ask, transistors.. what..??

In short transistors are small semiconductor devices that manipulates flow of current to make the computers do what they do. OK?

Uhh… okaayyy… so how small are these transistors and how exactly they help make a computer fit in our pockets?

The size of transistor depands on the manufacturer and the requirements of the companies, for example there are transistors ranging from 22 nanometers to 1 nanometers. Apple uses 7 nanometers chipset for their latest iPhones.

Nanometers! yes, nanometers. and if you have difficulty imagining how small is a nanometer here is a video that might help.

Now you see there are transistors even the size of 1 nanometer!

With that in mind you can imagine how small can we go. Definitely not the ant-man style small but considerable small.

But how come these transistors make our computers?

Umm.. in order to understand it in a simple way think of it by this example, you are in a dark room now in order to get light you add a bulb in the room and there is light, but what if you add two bulbs? The intensity of light doubles and it continues to grow as more of the bulbs you add. In similar fashion the more transistors you add the more powerful a computer gets.

But thats not it, in present day you can use a supercomputer without even accessing the hardware of that system.

Wait waa..

Yes! The internet has given us this power to summon even a supercomputer right from your mobile phone without even knowing about it at all. All the queries you make all the web pages you visit and all the likes and comments you make actually happen on a very powerful computer far away from your phones. And those computers are grouped in what is called a data center.

Wait a minute… we are now going off track. We are learning about computers in modern world but how come there are points about internet and data whatever centers?🧐

Yes, we are still learning about computers in modern world. You see, computers have developed so vast that just calling them computers seems generalized. Computers are robots, mobile phones, TVs, even washing machines these days.

And that’s not just it, cars are driving them selves, AI is a thing now, humans are controlling a robot on another planet, hack we have even captured an image of a black hole!! All of these because we have developed so powerful computers.

But all these advancement must have a limit, right? I mean there is only so much we can make. And as stated by Mr. Gordon Moore (co-founder of Intel),

“The number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles about every two years.”

This is also known as Moore’s law.

So if we go back to the size of a transistor and do some maths we can easily come to a conclusion that there will be a limit to smallest transistors to be fit on the most dense chip. And what then?

What happens when we hit that wall when we can no longer push our chips to hold more transistors? Because as we have known more transistors equal more powerful computers.

Huh?! Well I am happy with the speed and power my computer or phones have right now. Who cares if there are no more space to fit more transistors on our devices? Right?

Wrong! If you look back and see what speed or power our old computers used to have and compare them to current devices they’ll look like toys. For a quick realization Apollo 11 mission that took humans to moon surface had only 4KB of RAM and operated on 1Mhz, compare that to your lowest configuration of any device today and you get the picture.

🤯Oh!

Yes, so you see we must go in a forward direction like we always have.

But what is next, what big can we do that makes today’s technology dwarf?

That’s my friend is future! And its coming faster than you think.

What is it? What are the new advances we are going to make?

We’ll know that for sure in our next part 🙃

P.S. This post is just a small attempt to explain the current technology. The explanations are not be taken literally but just to get an idea.