MIT Busy Coming Up With Self-assembling Computer Chips

Manufacturing computer chips isn’t something that you can do with your eyes closed, but (probably) in the spirit of making our lives easier, researchers at MIT have come up with a rather interesting technique which causes polymers to automatically fall into place to create an integrated circuit, effectively creating self-assembling chips. Considering the fact that as chips get smaller, they become harder and more expensive to manufacture, so this technology would certainly be welcome, as it’d allow manufacturers to cut costs involved in etching complex designs on smaller chips. This is achieved by using electron beam lithography to create nanoscale “posts” on a silicon chip, after the copolymers are deposited on the chip. The copolymers would then spontaneously link to the posts and arrange themselves into useful patterns. Sounds magical, doesn’t it?