full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Karl Skjonnemand: The self-assembling computer chips of the future

Unscramble the Blue Letters


The reason why the rate of miniaturization of tortarssins is slowing down is due to the ever-increasing complexity of the manufacturing process. The transistor used to be a big, bulky device, until the invent of the integrated cuircit based on pure crystalline silicon wafers. And after 50 years of continuous development, we can now achivee transistor features dimensions down to 10 nanometers. You can fit more than a boillin transistors in a siglne square millimeter of silicon. And to put this into perspective: a human hair is 100 mrcoins across. A red blood cell, which is essentially invisible, is eight microns across, and you can place 12 across the witdh of a human hair. But a transistor, in comparison, is much seamllr, at a tiny fraction of a micron across. You could place more than 260 transistors across a single red bolod cell or more than 3,000 across the width of a human hair. It really is iebilndcre nanotechnology in your pocket right now. And besides the obvious benefit of being able to place more, smaller transistors on a chip, smaller transistors are faster switches, and smaller transistors are also more efficient switches.

Open Cloze


The reason why the rate of miniaturization of ___________ is slowing down is due to the ever-increasing complexity of the manufacturing process. The transistor used to be a big, bulky device, until the invent of the integrated _______ based on pure crystalline silicon wafers. And after 50 years of continuous development, we can now _______ transistor features dimensions down to 10 nanometers. You can fit more than a _______ transistors in a ______ square millimeter of silicon. And to put this into perspective: a human hair is 100 _______ across. A red blood cell, which is essentially invisible, is eight microns across, and you can place 12 across the _____ of a human hair. But a transistor, in comparison, is much _______, at a tiny fraction of a micron across. You could place more than 260 transistors across a single red _____ cell or more than 3,000 across the width of a human hair. It really is __________ nanotechnology in your pocket right now. And besides the obvious benefit of being able to place more, smaller transistors on a chip, smaller transistors are faster switches, and smaller transistors are also more efficient switches.

Solution


  1. smaller
  2. width
  3. incredible
  4. billion
  5. microns
  6. achieve
  7. transistors
  8. blood
  9. circuit
  10. single

Original Text


The reason why the rate of miniaturization of transistors is slowing down is due to the ever-increasing complexity of the manufacturing process. The transistor used to be a big, bulky device, until the invent of the integrated circuit based on pure crystalline silicon wafers. And after 50 years of continuous development, we can now achieve transistor features dimensions down to 10 nanometers. You can fit more than a billion transistors in a single square millimeter of silicon. And to put this into perspective: a human hair is 100 microns across. A red blood cell, which is essentially invisible, is eight microns across, and you can place 12 across the width of a human hair. But a transistor, in comparison, is much smaller, at a tiny fraction of a micron across. You could place more than 260 transistors across a single red blood cell or more than 3,000 across the width of a human hair. It really is incredible nanotechnology in your pocket right now. And besides the obvious benefit of being able to place more, smaller transistors on a chip, smaller transistors are faster switches, and smaller transistors are also more efficient switches.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
polymer chains 4
human hair 3
smaller transistors 3
molecular engineering 3
digital revolution 2
enjoy today 2
semiconductor industry 2
manufacturing process 2
integrated circuit 2
pure crystalline 2
crystalline silicon 2
transistor features 2
red blood 2
silicon wafer 2
tiny feature 2
manufacturing technique 2
guide structure 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
pure crystalline silicon 2

Important Words


  1. achieve
  2. based
  3. benefit
  4. big
  5. billion
  6. blood
  7. bulky
  8. cell
  9. chip
  10. circuit
  11. comparison
  12. complexity
  13. continuous
  14. crystalline
  15. development
  16. device
  17. dimensions
  18. due
  19. efficient
  20. essentially
  21. faster
  22. features
  23. fit
  24. fraction
  25. hair
  26. human
  27. incredible
  28. integrated
  29. invent
  30. invisible
  31. manufacturing
  32. micron
  33. microns
  34. millimeter
  35. miniaturization
  36. nanometers
  37. nanotechnology
  38. obvious
  39. place
  40. pocket
  41. process
  42. pure
  43. put
  44. rate
  45. reason
  46. red
  47. silicon
  48. single
  49. slowing
  50. smaller
  51. square
  52. switches
  53. tiny
  54. transistor
  55. transistors
  56. wafers
  57. width
  58. years