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NASA Wires Chips With Nanotubes

Posted by timothy on from the little-tiny-ones dept.

carstene writes "SpaceDaily reports that NASA has come up with a way to wire microchips with nanotubes instead of copper interconnects. Aparently this could keep Moore's law a reality well into the next decade."

2 of 195 comments (clear)

  1. Re:royalties by bcwalrus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Can they patent something created using your tax dollars?

  2. Re:NanoTubes... by Compuser · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Well, it seems they are using multi-wall nanotubes
    with rather large number of shells. Then you can
    pass enough current to blow out all semiconducting
    shells and get a metallic conductor. I don't
    know if they use this trick but that's what IBM
    people have done a while back.
    The real trick is positioning these nanotubes
    and contacting them. I wonder what they do to
    assure good electrical contact. Typically your
    contacts will be the first to blow out and the
    thing to limit electronic mobility. Plus
    encasing the nanotubes in silica sounds like a
    bad idea because these suckers are really
    sensitive to external perturbations and may not
    conduct as well under external stress.