Quote:
Originally Posted by HachiEnam
From what I'm learning in my ECE classes is that the reason technology became so microscopic was mainly due to the existence of transistors. Previously resistors were prohibiting us from minimizing these boards. Nowadays CPUs are being limited by silicon.
I'm not too sure about batteries but supercapacitors seem pretty promising.
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Your first comments are a little off base. Semiconductor technology has gotten smaller over time because smaller generally means cheaper and faster. It's just the continuous improvement of the transistor technology.
I'm not sure what you mean by CPUs are limited by silicon, and I design CPUs for a living.
The problem with supercaps and batteries is that they simply don't have the energy density of gasoline.
Gasoline: 44MJ/kg
Li battery: 1.8MJ/kg
Super cap: 0.018 MJ/kg
The numbers above are from Wiki, so they may not be gospel, but you get the idea.
If you want to be able to drive your car even moderate distances, you'll need a huge ass battery.