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<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Tahoma
size=2></FONT></DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2></FONT>From <A
href="http://www.bizreport.com/article.php?art_id=5706&PHPSESSID=3e4b214b41904fcc4177620b808ec75e">BizReport</A>:
Researchers at IBM Corp. claim they have made an important breakthrough in the
race to design circuitry at the molecular level: a system that works with
existing methods of electronics manufacturing. In a paper being released Monday
at an industry conference in Washington, D.C., IBM researchers Chuck Black and
Kathyrn Guarini say they used a naturally occurring pattern of molecules as a
stencil to etch flash memory circuitry into silicon. <BR>Other researchers are
experimenting with using self-assembling, or naturally forming, patterns of
molecules to build very tiny circuitry. Doing so is believed to be necessary if
the high-tech industry can continue to pack more transistors into smaller spaces
- the process that continually makes computing faster and less expensive. But
the IBM scientists believe they are the first to use the molecular patterns not
as circuits that have to be connected to larger wires, but as stencils that
light can be shone through to create circuitry in silicon. That would make it
more likely to work with existing processes, potentially saving money in
manufacturing. <BR>IBM predicts prototype devices using the technique could
emerge in three to five years.</DIV></BODY></HTML>