Invisible wrote:
> If you were to make a device so small that it consists of only a few 
> dozen atoms, you couldn't be able to reason about it using the usual 
> laws of electricity. You'd have to use quantum dynamics or something.

And you think that people building modern semiconductor wafers aren't 
using quantum dynamics to design them?  I mean, you need QED to even 
make *any* semiconductor work.

> only, say, 20 atoms in size, then they'd *all* be ordinary silicon 
> atoms, and it wouldn't be a semiconductor.

Technically, it would still be a semiconductor. Just not a very useful 
one, because it would be 100% semiconductor.

> a sandwich of N-type and P-type semiconductive matter) with that few 
> atoms. It wouldn't work properly.

I believe the junction between base and emitter in a CMOS transistor is 
all one type of semiconductor (all P or all N) for what it's worth. :-)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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