The team claims this makes for "the most complex nanoelectronic system ever made with emerging nanotechnologies," creating a 3D computer architecture. Using carbon makes the whole thing possible, since higher temperatures required to make a silicon CPU would damage the sensitive RRAM cells.

This technology could do more than just speed up the framerate on your next Xbox too, as the current prototype used a top layer of one million carbon nanotube sensors to detect gases, with the information processed and measured directly on the chip. So far, the development has been funded by organizations including DARPA and the NSF. The next step in the process is to work with Analog Devices on new versions of the technology -- unfortunately like so many graphene-related breakthroughs we have no idea when this one will be commercially available.