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MOTE: (Molectronic Omniprocessing TEchnocyte) |
First developed in the early Interplanetary Age, motes eventually replaced the so-called 'chips' as the basic component of computer hardware.
Basic Structure and Capabilities:
The basic component on a standard mote is a buckministerfullerene sphere (Carbon 60) approximately 1nm in diameter. Nanoconstructed input/output links and control structures increase the size of each mote to approximately 4nm in each dimension. Each mote unit is able to act as a quantum dot.
Using its quantum dot nature, each mote can operate as either a digital or analog processor, or as a single qubit quantum computer, on demand and at need. Grouped together in a three-dimensional array of several hundred or more units (often called a MITE for Multiple Integrated TEchnocytes), motes are able to form an extremely powerful computing substrate able to change its operating mode at will. Further, operating as a multi-function processor, the mite array can rapidly transfer data throughout its structure by storing information in electron spin states and then using quantum tunnelling to transfer the electrons within the array.
In addition to their versatile and extensive processing capabilities, motes are able to store a considerable amount of data in the stabilized spin states of the electrons that make up their core structure. The buckministerfullerene core of each mote contains 60 carbon atoms incorporating 360 electrons, each able to store some 100 bits of information, or a total of 36000 bits of information per mote. While this is a minuscule amount of data in and of itself, the combined storage capabilities of an entire array of mote units can be enormous.
As an example, a single mite array of 1 cubic millimeter constitutes some 1.6x1016 motes able to perform the equivalent of 21.6x1016 quantum parallel computations per second and store some 5.6x10^20 bits of information.
Early mite technologies revolutionized data processing in the Interplanetary Age and may have been a direct factor in the development of the first SI:1 intelligences. Later developments of the technology, employing the ability of buckministerfullerenes to store other atoms within their structure, and still later to act as a stable platform for picotech and femtotech based processors, have assured the mote a major place in the history of computational technologies even into the present era.
