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100x Denser Chips Possible With Plasmonic Nanolithography

Posted by timothy on from the powers-of-10-are-nice dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "According to the semiconductor industry, maskless nanolithography is a flexible nanofabrication technique which suffers from low throughput. But now, engineers at the University of California at Berkeley have developed a new approach that involves 'flying' an array of plasmonic lenses just 20 nanometers above a rotating surface, it is possible to increase throughput by several orders of magnitude. The 'flying head' they've created looks like the stylus on the arm of an old-fashioned LP turntable. With this technique, the researchers were able to create line patterns only 80 nanometers wide at speeds up to 12 meters per second. The lead researcher said that by using 'this plasmonic nanolithography, we will be able to make current microprocessors more than 10 times smaller, but far more powerful' and that 'it could lead to ultra-high density disks that can hold 10 to 100 times more data than today's disks.'"

13 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. dense? by chibiace · · Score: 4, Funny

    what ever happened to smart chips?

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    he who controls the spice controls the universe
  2. 5-10 years by wjh31 · · Score: 4, Funny

    every great new technology is 5-10 years away i belive

    1. Re:5-10 years by Klaus_1250 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Except for nuclear fusion, that always 30 years away.

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      It only takes one man to change the Wisdom of the Crowd to Tyranny of the Masses.
    2. Re:5-10 years by rubycodez · · Score: 4, Funny

      very good news for you, electricity by fusion is no longer something promised 30 years away, now it's fifty.

    3. Re:5-10 years by Ortega-Starfire · · Score: 2, Funny

      They better hurry up, for about a century we've been told we'll run out of oil in 20 years.

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      ---- Liquid was a patriot ----
    4. Re:5-10 years by Fluffeh · · Score: 2, Funny

      And I thought it was already here. While reading TFA I couldn't help but think. Wow, that's dense. That's really dense. Surely nothing could be that dense short of Microsoft programmers?

      Yeah, look, sorry it's early and that's the best I got at the moment. Live it up!

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      Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
  3. That's good... by kitsunewarlock · · Score: 4, Funny

    These thin chips keep breaking off in my salsa.

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  4. Hooray for the Athlon64 X200! by NerveGas · · Score: 4, Funny

    Just think... we'll be able to have 198 cores doing nothing, now!

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    Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
  5. Plasmonic? by gsgriffin · · Score: 5, Funny

    Was this developed at the Gizmonic Institute?

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  6. Government funding by philspear · · Score: 4, Funny

    Nano-something you say? Can it possibly be used in the production of biofuels to increase homeland security against bioterrorism? If so I have a big check for you to pick up.

  7. Re:Fragility by ZarathustraDK · · Score: 4, Funny

    A question for the physics people out there. At what point does Brownian motion become a serious consideration? What about tunneling electrons and other quantum-ish effects?

    Depends on the fiber-content of the brownie...

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  8. Re:Space elevators by Klaus_1250 · · Score: 2, Funny

    ^^ DO NOT mod parent funny! (and that includes Neo-Luddites, trying to be funny) ^^

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    It only takes one man to change the Wisdom of the Crowd to Tyranny of the Masses.
  9. Re:Fragility by Jafafa+Hots · · Score: 2, Funny

    Plasmonics is very neat though...

    It's also a great name for a band.

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