Skyscraper-Style Chip Design Boosts Performance 1,000-Fold

Megalith

Megalith

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University researchers and Stanford engineers have developed a revolutionary high-rise architecture for computing called N3XT that should allow for greater speeds but lower energy use.

N3XT will break data bottlenecks by integrating processors and memory like floors in a skyscraper and by connecting these components with millions of "vias," which play the role of tiny electronic elevators. The N3XT high-rise approach will move more data, much faster, using far less energy, than would be possible using low-rise circuits.
 
Stacking chip components isn't really a new idea, it just hasn't been very practical with silicon. Sounds like the real breakthroughs here are in their transistors:

N3XT high-rise chips are based on carbon nanotube transistors (CNTs). Transistors are fundamental units of a computer processor, the tiny on-off switches that create digital zeroes and ones. CNTs are faster and more energy-efficient than silicon processors. Moreover, in the N3XT architecture, they can be fabricated and placed over and below other layers of memory.
Click to expand...
 
You'll be seeing this in action right around the time Intel starts banging off the 5nm wall.
 
I visualized the navigation of the Gibson in "Hackers" while reading this
 
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