The life of the silicon chip industry may last 10 or more years longer, thanks to a new manufacturing process using carbon nanotubes developed by NASA scientists.
Engineers have crossed a symbolic barrier with a new way to make microchips with transistors that are a thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair or as small as a flu virus. The 90-nanometre width is regarded as a major milestone because scientists believe it will eventually lead to the production of transistors with atomic level dimensions.