Home » Audio » Thermionic Emissions » Tube on a Chip?
Tube on a Chip? [message #74091] Tue, 09 October 2012 11:40 Go to next message
Nymeria is currently offline  Nymeria
Messages: 508
Registered: April 2011
Illuminati (1st Degree)
NASA and a South Korean lab are trying to make a tube small enough to use on a circuit board. There's not much information here, but it's an interesting thought.
Re: Tube on a Chip? [message #74093 is a reply to message #74091] Tue, 09 October 2012 13:29 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Wayne Parham is currently offline  Wayne Parham
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Registered: January 2001
Illuminati (33rd Degree)

That's seriously interesting! Thanks for the link.

As a humorous aside, for my birthday one year, an electronics mentor gave me a chip glued to the anode cap on top of a tube. He made a little label for it that read "microprocessor controlled tube", just as a joke. It was meant to be ridiculous, like putting a supercharger on a horse-drawn carriage.

But as the years passed, and we've seen a resurgence of vacuum tubes in audio circuits, I've often thought of that. With digital sources driving tube amplifiers, we now really do have lots of examples of microprocessor controlled tubes. And this link shows even more advancements in this area.

Re: Tube on a Chip? [message #74098 is a reply to message #74093] Tue, 09 October 2012 21:12 Go to previous messageGo to next message
gofar99 is currently offline  gofar99
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Registered: May 2010
Location: Southern Arizona
Illuminati (5th Degree)
How cool a micro 300B on a chip Laughing The thermal load would force it to be immersed in liquid nitrogen. I see no reason why micro tubes on a chip could not be made. There are a number of tubes that are quite small now, so with technological advances since the "peanut" tube's heyday I can envision one an order of magnitude smaller. Be great for very high frequency and switching applications. For audio maybe, maybe not so great. Still a very interesting topic.



Good Listening
Bruce
Re: Tube on a Chip? [message #74107 is a reply to message #74091] Wed, 10 October 2012 13:15 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Nymeria is currently offline  Nymeria
Messages: 508
Registered: April 2011
Illuminati (1st Degree)
Yes, I thought it was pretty cool too. Wayne, I guess your mentor was just ahead of his time! Laughing

Bruce, I don't have much knowledge in this area, so I don't know; why do you think it'd only be good for very high frequencies?
Re: Tube on a Chip? [message #74165 is a reply to message #74093] Thu, 18 October 2012 11:04 Go to previous messageGo to next message
chrisR is currently offline  chrisR
Messages: 36
Registered: May 2009
Baron
Try this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuvistor
I remember seeing these in college, but I *had* to have been in a history class.

Chris
Re: Tube on a Chip? [message #74166 is a reply to message #74165] Thu, 18 October 2012 15:01 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Wayne Parham is currently offline  Wayne Parham
Messages: 18669
Registered: January 2001
Illuminati (33rd Degree)

Another very interesting link, thanks!

Re: Tube on a Chip? [message #86074 is a reply to message #74091] Wed, 06 September 2017 16:50 Go to previous messageGo to next message
WorkingWoman2017 is currently offline  WorkingWoman2017
Messages: 82
Registered: June 2017
Viscount
I was reading an article about this and there are now some hollow carbon tube chips that are likely to replace silicon based chips in the near future. The tubes are 1.4 nanometers in diameter, or approximately 100,000 times thinner than a human hair. Sounds like it's about to happen!
Re: Tube on a Chip? [message #86188 is a reply to message #86074] Sat, 23 September 2017 23:03 Go to previous message
Ziggy is currently offline  Ziggy
Messages: 27
Registered: September 2017
Chancellor
I keep finding some very interesting facts here. Who knew that they could or would make chips so small but I guess it was just a matter of time. Miracles never cease!
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