Edinburgh, Oct.22 : University of Edinburgh engineers have reportedly paved the way for the creation of palm-fitting supercomputers.

According to the BBC, the engineers first studied the behaviour of wires which were 1,000 times thinner than human hair and then created a tool to develop tiny microchips.

Assisted by German and Italian experts, the Scottish experts hope the discovery will eventually lead to medical advances, as well as hand-held PCs and mobile phones that are as powerful as laptops.

The Edinburgh researchers teamed up with colleagues from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany and the University of Rome, Italy, to look at how tiny wires behave when they are manipulated. With the help of computers, they found that wires on a nanoscale, measured in millionths of a millimetre, behave quite differently from bigger wires.

"What we found is when we made these wires smaller and smaller they started to behave in a very funny way," said Dr Michael Zaiser of Edinburgh's School of Engineering and Electronics.

The experts in Edinburgh have created a computer programme which allows engineers to predict when these problems might arise with the wires - and how to avoid them.

The discovery, which is to be published in the journal Science, should help ensure that wiring in electronic devices remains effective, even in a supercomputer the size of a matchbox.

"This will help to make small devices much more powerful in the future. Holding a supercomputer in the palm of your hand will one day be possible - and we are going to make sure all the wires are in the right place," Dr Zaiser said. (ANI)