Nanotechnology is being called many things: A massive investment opportunity; an incredibly promising next generation electronics technology, and even a threat to humanity.
For the electronics sector, fabrication of chips with nanoscale (nm) features is becoming routine. Yet while semiconductor manufacturing is dealing in nanometres, it too is still to be affected by true nanotechnology - or more accurately “molecular nanotechnology”.
Molecular nanotechnology (referred to as nanotechnology for the rest of this article) means constructing materials and devices virtually one atom at a time. It’s the exact opposite of how things are made today: currently engineers take a group of limited (natural or synthetic) macroscopic materials and, for example, refine, combine and catalyse them to produce something useful. In contrast, nanotechnology constructs useful devices from individual atoms and molecules (atoms and molecules mingle and combine on an atomic scale) to make whatever material, device and (eventually) machine that’s desired.
To understand the power of nanotechnology, it helps to consider that the structure materials is governed by the arrangement and interactions between its atoms and molecules. If that arrangement and interaction can be controlled, we would be able to produce materials with precise engineering attributes.
Some warn that just as with the fictional Dr Frankenstein, the consequences could rapidly overtake human control and turn into a catastrophe.
The reality, however, doesn’t warrant that kind of hysteria; which has only served to distract the public’s attention away from the huge technological benefits nanotechnology could offer. Examples of nanotech’s promise include plastic materials tens of times lighter than steel but of the same strength and much higher thermal resistance, super powerful computers and new types of molecular materials that combine polymers, ceramics, metals and even organic elements (for example for bone-replacement).
Nanotech offers a solution to scores of intractable engineering problems. At a stroke, humanity could take a leap forward not seen since the advent of ICs.
Incremental advance
And it could come sooner that we think. According to analysts Research and Markets, nanotechnology is already advancing towards commercialisation in many areas. The company proposes that progress will generally be gradual and incremental, albeit interspersed by a few significant leaps.
Research and Markets cites the data storage market as a prime example of a sector that will benefit enormously from current nanotechnology R&D. This could produce truly “disruptive technologies” in the form of ultra-dense, large, non-volatile random access memories within the next few years.
Part of the reason for the company’s confidence is said to be the number of different technologies being pursued for memory applications. This typifies the nature of nanotechnology R&D whereby a diverse set of approaches converges towards a single application with no clear winner apparent.
In the memory and computing field these include approaches using arrays of tiny cantilevers with very sharp points to write magnetically or optically, or even to make indentations in a polymer; there is magnetic RAM, relying on quantum mechanical effects based on the spins of electrons; there are various types of molecular memory being pursued; and several promising approaches using carbon nanotubes.
From lab to fab
The gap between nanotechnology and nanoscale semiconductor fabrication is yet to close. Memory technology giant Samsung Electronics, for example, recently embarked on an 34,000 sq-ft (3160 m2) expansion of its Austin, Texas manufacturing facility to accommodate next-generation nanoscale fabrication.
This includes a three-year US$500 million ($690 million) investment to deliver 90-nm designs at a capacity of 50,000 wafers per month for manufacturing Giga-density DRAM devices.
But although this is impressively small, it’s not nanotechnology. As the problems of increasingly small silicon geometries continue to manifest themselves—in particular leakage currents—semiconductor vendors will need to find radically new processes to boost memory performances, and true nanotech will become the saviour of Moore’s Law.
A similar situation exists in the MEMS market, where nanotechnology promises the ability to produce MEMS sensors, for example, of unprecedented accuracy, but current commercial devices are not nanotechnology fabrications. According to analysts Technical Insights, nanotechnology promises to open the floodgates on opportunities for developing new MEMS-based applications and products.
The company predicts it’s only be a matter of time before nanotechnology offers a viable solutions for industrial challenges stalling advance.
Which neatly encompasses the nature of nanotechnology. Because, while every week there are many R&D stories about nanotechnology “breakthroughs”, there still remains a sizeable gap between the scientists in R&D and the engineers in the real word. Bar a few notable exceptions (for example some cosmetics and clothing materials) nanotechnology still has a long way to travel from prototype to customer.
Stumbling blocks
One of the tallest hurdles is our lack of ability to grow nanotechnology “building blocks” such as nanotubes in a reliable and reproducible fashion suitable for mass production. The solution may be the successful development of some kind of self-replication fabricating mechanism.
And that may come sooner than you think. Electronics News has heard, for example, of magnetic memories from one well known vendor, which are due to arrive next year and will be fabricated using ordered arrays of nanotubes.
The question about nanotechnology is now not how, but when. Some analysts believe that hundreds of commercial products will be widely available in less than a decade. Others go further, saying that within five years nanotechnology will have replaced the Internet as the single most influential technology affecting how we live, work and play.