Nanotechnology Gets Finer

An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet reports on a new level of detail found in nanotech construction." From the article: "Japan's NEC Electronics has developed a technology to make advanced microchips with circuitry width of 55 nanometers, or billionths of a meter, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun business daily reported Sunday. Finer circuitry decreases the size of a chip and cuts per-unit production costs. It also helps chips process data faster."

Comments

Will "top down" beat "bottom up"?

[janneH]

Bottom up construction has been a central tenet in some parts of the nanotechnology community. The idea that putting things together by controlling the position of individual atoms/molecules during fabrication will allow enormous breakthroughs in computing and other fields. But at least in the silicon based semiconductor business, the top down approach keeps marching mercilessly toward the bottom. This while bottom up synthesis/fabrication is still stuck at proof of concept. Might "top down" make it to the bottom - before the "bottom up" makes it to the top?