Self-Assembling Computer Chip
To create archetypes of tiny posts on a silicon chip, Karl Berggren, the Emanuel E. Landsman Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering, and Caroline Ross’s, the Toyota Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, method is to use electron-beam lithography sparingly. Specially designed polymers are then deposited on the chip. The polymers automatically fasten up and arrange themselves into useful patterns.
“It’s like the difference between writing by hand and printing a page all at once,” says Berggren and Ross. In their attempts to set apart themselves, the distinct types of polymer chain classify themselves into predictable patterns. By altering the length of the chains, the proportions of the two polymers, and the shape and location of the silicon hitching posts, Ross, Berggren, and their colleagues were able to produce a wide range of patterns useful in circuit design.
But the use of electron-beam lithography is much more expensive than the conventional optical lithography.
Click here to read more about Self-Assembling Computer Chips, Artificial Intelligence.
