Computers double in power every 18 months or so as scientists and engineers develop ways to make silicon chips smaller. But in the next few years they will hit a limit imposed by the need to use electric wiring, which weakens signals sent between computer components at high speed.

The project could produce a way of carrying electrical signals without the need for wiring. Although WiFi Internet systems and mobile phones already use wireless technology, the electronics that create the wireless signals are too large to be used within individual microchips.

The research project, led by Dr. Alain Nogaret of the University of Bath's Department of Physics, involves four universities in the UK and a university and research centre in Belgium and France, will look at ways of producing microwave energy by firing electrons into magnetic fields produced in semi-conductors that are only a few atoms wide and layered with magnets.

The process called inverse electron spin resonance uses the magnetic field to deflect electrons and to modify their magnetic direction. That, say scientists, creates oscillations of the electrons that makes them produce microwave energy. That energy then can be used to broadcast electric signals in free space, without the weakening caused by ires.

The project aims to create wireless emitters and receivers that fit on semi-conductor wafers, where individual devices are one ten thousandth of a millimetre in size.

It will also allow the creation of integrated circuits which will still continue to work properly even if some of its connections fail the system can be programmed to reroute itself so that it can continue working. At present a failure in a connecting wire can put an integrated circuit out of action.

The research, if successful, would allow computers to become up to 500 times faster, yet remain the same size as they are today. (ANI)