Researchers develop self-assembling chip technique

IBM has developed prototype silicon-polymer flash-memory chips using a process based on self-assembling nanocrystals. The process uses a technique in which two polymers, when heated, self-organize into patterns that researchers can manipulate to make one of the stencils used to produce the chips. This self-assembly process could enable manufacturers to produce smaller chips and reduce the high cost and complexity of traditional lithography, which uses expensive tools to precisely draw on a silicon substrate the places where every transistor, wire, and other element will go.