|(PHOTO CREDIT UR)| High-resolution image available (please
include photo credit) |Click here to view animation| Computer
designers at the University of Rochester are going ballistic.
"Everyone has been trying to make better transistors by
modifying current designs, but what we really need is the next
paradigm," says Quentin Diduck, a graduate student at the
University who thought up the radical new design. "We've gone
from the relay, to the tube, to semiconductor physics. Now we're
taking the next step on the evolutionary track." That next step
goes by the imposing name of "Ballistic Deflection Transistor,"
and it's as far from traditional transistors as tubes. Instead
of running electrons through a transistor as if they were a
current of water, the ballistic design bounces individual
electrons off deflectors as if playing a game of atomic
billiards. Though today's transistor design has many years of
viability left, the amount of heat these transistors generate
and the electrical "leaks" in their ultra-thin