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This article, IBM gets closer to a future of nanotube-based chips,

originally appeared on CNET.com.

This microscopic view shows a faint vertical line consisting of car-

bon nanotube segments bonded to the golden-colored parallel

wires. IBM Research

IBM researchers have licked a problem that stood in the way of a

promising technology that could sustain the computing industry's

remarkable march of progress.

The evolution of computers from refrigerator-sized mainframes to

smartphones in your pocket has hinged on chips that keep get-

ting smaller and working faster. The miniaturization that's central

to that progress, though, is facing serious engineering problems

as electronic components shrink down toward atomic-size scales.

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On Thursday, IBM published research results that show how

miniaturization can keep moving ahead, part of a $3 billion re-

search effort to build chips using a foundation of carbon nan-

otubes. These nanotubes are hollow cylinders whose walls are

made of a single layer of carbon atoms linked into a hexagonal

lattice pattern. It looks like an extremely tiny roll of chicken wire,

but about 10,000 times smaller than a human hair.

"This breakthrough demonstrates the technology can scale," en-

abling ever-smaller chip components, said Shu-Jen Han, a mate-

rials scientist at IBM's T. J. Watson Research Center, headquar-

tered in Yorktown Heights, New York. "And we believe it can hap-

pen in the decade, sooner than the industry thinks."

Making chips smaller and more capable is key to sustaining the

computing industry's decades-long track record of progress called

Moore's Law. That progress, with new chip manufacturing tech-

nologies arriving about every two years, has brought computers

to our desks, pockets and now wrists. It's helped Google to make

sense of the Web and enabled Facebook to recognize our

friends' faces in photos. But that progress is slowing, and if it

were to come to a halt, many of tomorrow's revolutionary comput-

ing ideas wouldn't have a chance to evolve.

IBM's new technique is "very good news, for sure. They've made

good progress in this area," said Aaron Thean, director of the

logic research program at IMEC, an independent nanoelectronics

research center based in Belgium. A lot more work needs to be

done to make nanotubes practical, though, he said.

Mike Feibus, a longtime chip-industry analyst at TechKnowledge

Strategies, called IBM's work a breakthrough.

"This is huge," Feibus said. "This should quiet those who've been

saying that Moore's Law may finally have run its course."

A carbon nanotube (CNT) is a lattice of carbon atoms rolled into a

cylindrical shape. Each one is about 10 billionths of a meter wide

-- about 10,000 times thinner than a human hair. IBM Research

The entire microprocessor industry is trying to find a path beyond

today's difficulties, but IBM has a particular focus on carbon nan-

otubes. Ultimately, it expects nanotubes to be used for chips in

everything from mammoth supercomputers to the tiny computers

spreading to places like clothing and car tire pressure gauges.

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Today's chip transistors are made using the element silicon, tak-

ing advantage of the fact that under different circumstances it ei-

ther conducts electricity or doesn't. Carbon nanotubes share this

"semiconductor" nature that enables them to act as on-off

switches that can process data.

What IBM has figured out is a better way to connect those nan-

otubes to the rest of the microprocessor so they can conduct

electricity when in their "on" state. Previously, high resistance

stopped electrons from flowing, but IBM figured a way to bond

each end of a nanotube to the metal molybdenum. The bonds

themselves are small, a crucial factor in making tiny chip circuitry.

The technique could be be built into chips three generations into

the future of chipmaking technology, Han said. But it offers minia-

turization abilities good enough that it can enable chips another

three generations beyond that, a hard problem since electrical re-

sistance can get worse as components shrink.

Thean sees other challenges, though. Although IBM has figured

out how to lower resistance, researchers still need to address an

electrical problem called capacitance that slows electron flow, he

said. Resistance and capacitance both reduce the speeds at

which circuits can switch on and off and therefore perform com-

puting work.

IBM itself points to other hurdles, too. One is that carbon nan-

otubes come in two varieties: semiconducting and metallic.

They're hard to separate, but transistors are ruined if they use the

metallic kind.

Another challenge is in manufacturing. Today's core chipmaking

technology, called photolithography, shines patterns of light on

the silicon wafers used to make chips. Those patterns ultimately

are used to carve away portions of material, leaving the chip cir-

cuitry behind.

Carbon nanotubes, though, require materials to be laid down on

the chip with extraordinary precision.

"When building silicon chips out of wafers, it's akin to getting a

piece of marble and sculpting it away to make a statue," Han

said. For carbon nanotubes, "we are starting with the marble dust

and have to figure out a way to make that into a statue."

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