S43E1: Breaking the Speed Limit

Professor Bishop goes on a fascinating exploration of the extraordinary world of the silicon chip and attempts to answer the plethora of questions associated with this technology. How is it possible to build a machine as complex as this with a billion tiny components packed into a space the size of a postage stamp? What are the challenges that are making it harder to continue the incredible improvement in speed, and what ideas are being explored to overcome them? Can new kinds of computers be built that are based on individual molecules? Can single electrons be used to store information? Could computation machines exist without consuming energy?