Envisioning the Future

          Backed by the microchip manufacturer Intel, first generation catoms, measuring 4.4 centimetres in diameter and 3.6 centimetres in height have already been created. The goal is to eventually produce catoms that are one or two millimetres in diameter-small enough to produce convincing replicas. It's not just a problem of building tiny robots, but figuring out how to power them, to get them to stick together and to coordinate and control millions or billions of them. These catoms, which are ringed by several electromagnets, are able to move around each other to form a variety of shapes containing rudimentary processors and drawing electricity from a board that they rest upon. So far only four catoms have been operated together. The plan though is to have thousands of them moving around each other to form whatever shape is desired and to change colour, also as required. 

Five years from now, the DPR researchers expect to have working ensembles of catoms that are close to spherical in shape. These catoms still will be large enough that no one will confuse a replica with the real thing (for that, catoms will probably have to shrink to less than a millimetre in diameter). But the catoms will be sufficiently robust that researchers can experiment with a variety of shapes, test hypotheses about ensemble behaviour, and begin to envision where the technology might lead within a decade or two.

While the potential applications of dynamic physical rendering are exciting, the work being done at Intel Research Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University has broader implications. At its core, the research involves learning to design, power, program and control a densely packed set of microprocessors. These are similar to the key challenges facing the computer industry today. As a result, the DPR research is likely to produce new insights and technologies that could influence the future of computing and communications.

If, in 1960, someone had suggested that one day you could buy a million transistors for a penny, the prediction would have seemed outlandish. But today Intel sells transistors for less than a micro cent, thanks to the continuing technology advances predicted by Moore's Law. It's not unreasonable to predict that one day far in the future; it may be possible to buy a million catoms for a penny.

But dynamic physical rendering could become viable long before Moore's Law drives down the cost of a catom to a micro cent. Even if catoms could be produced for a dollar each, some visualization applications might be economically viable. Certain other applications, such as programmable antennas, could be attractive even if a catom sold for tens or hundreds of dollars.

Whatever the cost, building catoms that are one millimetre in diameter-small enough to create convincing replicas-will be a difficult engineering challenge. But given current industry knowledge and the state of the art of silicon technology, it is not outside the realm of possibility. The challenge lies less in developing new technology than in bringing together a number of research areas in which the industry has made tremendous technical progress in the last decade.