May 24, 2000, 7 - 9 am presentation

First in our Future Technologies Series:
Nanotechnology and Micro-Machines
Technologies that will change the world

Panelists (alphabetically)

Russ Howell, Manager of Optical Communications Business, Texas Instruments DLP group

Akira Ishikawa, Chairman, CEO and Inventor, Ball Semiconductor

Ralph Merkle, Principal Fellow, Zyvex

Panel  Overview

For years the public has viewed Nanotechnology as the stuff of Science Fiction -- small robots a millionth of an inch in size, capable of transforming the very molecular structure of matter. Whether it's Neal Stephenson's SF novel "The Diamond Age" describing nano-probes building entire cities from just the raw materials, or Start Trek's Borg transforming people into cyborg drones, nanotechnology has appeared to the public as "way out there." However, nanotech has a reality in scientific circles, and a number of companies are starting to reap financial rewards from being early innovators.

Physicist Richard Feynman first suggested the concept of nanotechnology in 1959. In a famous speech he first suggested that devices and materials could be assembled atom-by atom. The field has been nurtured and evangelized by K. Eric Drexler of the Foresight Institute, ever since his 1981 journal article on molecular nanotechnology. The ability to build things on a molecular level – down to nanometer size -- will require a whole new set of technologies, as dealing with the ultra-small involves a different set of rules. However, once an "Assembler" which can build things atom-by-atom has become a reality, almost any device that could be conceived (designed and programmed) could be built cheaply from raw materials.

Nanometer devices are not as far away as you might think. Scientists and engineers have learned to create micron-scale "micro-tech" devices of about a thousandth of an inch in size. These MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) can be built with very small moving parts, and is real, commercial technology today. Techniques for working at a micron level with silicon semiconductors can create ultra-fast computing components, ultra-small sensors and telemetry devices, and ultra-high bandwidth communications networks. They will transform the Internet, revolutionize medicine, and bring visions of the future into reality.

We will have three pioneering companies present their visions of how these technologies will reshape the 21st century, and how they plan to profit from them.

Texas Instruments is a pioneer in the MEMS field with their DLP and DMD (Digital Light Processing and Digital Micromirror Device) technology. Integrating a million controllable mirrors or more on a semiconductor chip, each device is capable of directly converting digital electronic information into dramatic visual images. Today the transport, as well as the display, of high bandwidth information is increasingly done in the photonic domain. MEMS technology has broad applicability to the delivery of high bandwidth content.

Ball Semiconductor has not only invented the techniques for producing semiconductors on small three-dimensional surfaces, they have incorporated MEMS and assembler-like technologies into their plant. On one end of the fabrication line sand is turned into millimeter-sized silicon spheres. Travelling from process to process in plastic tubing, out the other end of the fab will come powerful semiconductor devices.

Zyvex is betting on the future of nanotechnology. Doing basic research into nanotech assembly techniques, their stated goal is to develop the first true Assembler. It may be ten years before their first commercial success, but they have already emerged as the world’s first (and perhaps only) commercial nanotechnology company

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History of Nanotechnology

• In a talk given in 1959, Richard Feynman was the first scientist to suggest that devices and materials could someday be fabricated to atomic specifications: "The principles of physics, as far as I can see, do not speak against the possibility of maneuvering things atom by atom."

• The first journal article published on molecular nanotechnology: "Molecular engineering: An approach to the development of general capabilities for molecular manipulation," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, September 1981, is now available at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing Web site.

• A short history of the idea of nanotechnology is given in "Nanotechnology: Evolution of the Concept," Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Vol. 45, pp. 395-400. This essay was reprinted in the book Prospects in Nanotechnology: Toward Molecular Manufacturing, ed. (Markus Krummenacker and James Lewis, Wiley, 1995).

(above part of the wealth of information on the Foresight Institute site.