Molecular electronics: Hewlett-Packard breakthrough could extend limits of silicon chips. (Technologies of the Year).

Industry Week, December, 2002 by Panchak, Patricia

RESEARCHERS AT HEWLETT Packard Co. (HP), Palo Alto, Calif this year announced a senes of dramatic breakthroughs that they say demonstrates that molecular electronics could be the semiconductor industry's answer to Moore's Law. The law states that semiconductor performance doubles roughly every two years while the cost to manufacture semiconductors increases at an even greater rate. At that pace, scientists in the industry fear that current silicon-based technology will hit its physical and economic limits by the end of the decade. The molecular electronics advances, the researchers say, could augment silicon-based integrated circuits within the decade and eventually replace them. Silicon-based technology "could be extended enormously by layering molecule-switch devices...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.