Prospects for Single‐Molecule Information‐Processing Devices for the Next Paradigm

Present information technologies use semiconductor devices and magnetic/optical disks; however, they are all foreseen to face fundamental limitations within a decade. Therefore, superceding devices are required for the next paradigm of high-performance information technologies. The paper first describes architectures suitable for single-molecule information processing, in which it is claimed that the performance of information processing is higher if speed and element number product is larger in almost all known architectures. Thus, single-molecule information-processing devices should be the most appropriate approach for the next paradigm. Then, prospects for single-molecule devices suitable for future information-processing technologies are described. Four possible milestones for realizing the Peta/Exa-floating operations per second (FLOPS) personal molecular supercomputer are proposed. Current status and necessary technologies of the first milestone are described, and necessary technologies for the next three milestones are also discussed.