Posted on 08/17/2009 8:16:51 AM PDT by FromLori
International Business Machines Corp is looking to the building blocks of our bodies -- DNA -- to be the structure of next-generation microchips.
As chipmakers compete to develop ever-smaller chips at cheaper prices, designers are struggling to cut costs.
Artificial DNA nanostructures, or "DNA origami" may provide a cheap framework on which to build tiny microchips, according to a paper published on Sunday in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
Microchips are used in computers, cell phones and other electronic devices.
"This is the first demonstration of using biological molecules to help with processing in the semiconductor industry," IBM research manager Spike Narayan said in an interview with Reuters.
"Basically, this is telling us that biological structures like DNA actually offer some very reproducible, repetitive kinds of patterns that we can actually leverage in semiconductor processes," he said.
The research was a joint undertaking by scientists at IBM's Almaden Research Center and the California Institute of Technology.
Right now, the tinier the chip, the more expensive the equipment. Narayan said that if the DNA origami process scales to production-level, manufacturers could trade hundreds of millions of dollars in complex tools for less than a million dollars of polymers, DNA solutions, and heating implements.
"The savings across many fronts could add up significantly," he said.
But the new processes are at least 10 years out. Narayan said that while the DNA origami could allow chipmakers to build frameworks that are far smaller than possible with conventional tools, the technique still needs years of experimentation and testing.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Go Big Blue!
Paging Dr. Daystrom.
"You can't understand it. You're frightened because you can't understand it."
Candidate for "sentence most devoid of useful information" award...
I hear they even have things called "transistors" now! (They're used mostly in televisions and guided missiles...)
Revelation 13:16-17 keeps creeping closer.
It's not the ones that don't make it out of the lab, it's the ones that do that makes it all worthwhile. Bell Labs was like that too. Lots of people working way outside the box. They averaged about two patents a day.
Sometimes it's not the the end research that gains the ground, but the tangential offshoots developed from processes in the original research.
I seem to think is is accelerating. Amen ! Brother.
shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach
Revelation 13:16-17 (New International Version)
16He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, 17so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.
= = =
INDEED.
AMEN! AMEN!
THX
THX
Something tells me that you completely failed to understood this article.
I’m taking Hebrew (for the second time) this semester. Just a refresher type thing. How do you pronounce the sixth letter of the alphabet? My Hebrew CD is pronouncing it WOW. Don’t know that this is correct. I originally learned it Vahv. Also Mem is Mame. But, on the CD, they pronounce in Mim.
My understanding it is pronounced vavshalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiachThe vav with the aleph(alpha) and tav(Omega) in Gen 1:1
uniting heaven and earth.
Bad ideeyaaah.
(*) After a while you don't notice these things at all.
Just wait until the IPv6 cutover, Real Soon Now.
And before that it was registering with the government for a SSN. Afterwards it was retail UPC barcodes, and then caller ID, and then debit cards, and then the Euro, and then IRDs....
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