In the Beginning was Information

to have complete processing or storage units on a single chip. The number ofcircuits that can be integrated on one chip, doubled approximately every secondyear. The first experimantal chip capable of storing more than one millionbits (1 Megabit = 2 20 bits = 1,048,576 bits), was developed in 1984 byIBM. The silicon wafer used measured 10.5 mm x 7.7 mm = 80.85 mm 2 , sothat the storage density was 13,025 bits per square mm. The time required toaccess data on this chip, was 150 nanoseconds (1 ns = 10 -9 s). The degree ofintegration increased steadily in subsequent years.The question arises whether the density of integration could be increasedindefinitely. In an article in “Elektronische Rechenanlagen” (Electroniccomputers) [F4] O. G. Folberth pointed out the obstacles that would haveto be overcome in future developments. Such hurdles in manufacturingtechnology, complexity of design, and testing problems, are however notfundamental. But there are hard physical boundaries of a final nature whichwould be impossible to overcome (geometric, thermic, and electrical limits).The maximum integration density which can be achieved with presentdaysilicon technology, can be calculated; it is found to be 2.5 x 10 5 latticeunits per mm 2 .The improvement of hardware elements made it possible for computer terminalsand personal computers to be as powerful as earlier mainframecomputers. One of the fastest computers made, is the CRAY C916/16, oneof the C-90 series. The processing speed of this 16 processor computer isabout 10 GFLOPS (= 10 Giga-FLOPS). One FLOPS (floating point operationsper second) means that one computation involving real numberswith floating decimal signs, can be executed in one second; 10 GFLOPSis thus equal to 10 thousand million arithmetic calculations like additionand multiplication performed in one second.2. Degree of integration in living cells: We have now been representedwith an astounding development involving the increasing degree of integration(number of circuit elements in one chip) and the integration density(degree of miniaturisation; circuit elements per area unit) as seen incomputer technology. There is no precedent for such a rapid and uniquedevelopment in any other field of technology.The information stored in the DNA molecules of all living cells is indispensablefor the numerous guided processes involving complex andunique functions. The human DNA molecule (body cells) is about 2meters long when stretched, and it contains 6 x 10 9 chemical letters. Wemay well ask what the packing density of this information could be, and itis fairly easy to calculate. According to Table 3 the information content ofone nucleotide is two bits, giving a total of 12 x 10 9 bits for one DNA molecule.Divide this by the number of bits in one Kbit (1024); this results in191