The nanotech revolution begins

Recently, advancements in nanotechnology have begun to appear in the news. This isn't new -- there have been advancements in nanotechnology being made for nearly a decade now. What's new is where these stories are showing up in the news -- it's not in science journals, but rather in trade publications.

One of these recent advances concerns using carbon nanotubes as interconnects. As chip features get smaller, the electrical resistance of various materials gets too high (as the resistance of a wire is higher as the wire gets thinner). We used to use aluminum... now we use copper. After that, only silver has lower resistance... then we're fresh out of materials unless we supercool the chip and use a superconductor. Atom-by-atom assembled carbon nanotubes offer an alternative.

( This is how it begins... )