Tag Archives: computer chips

Danish Chinese collaboration on graphene project could lead to smaller, faster, greener electronic devices

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A mixed team of Danish and Chinese scientists have made a transistor from a single molecular monolayer that works on a computer chip according to a June 19, 2013 University of Copenhagen news release,

The molecular integrated circuit was created by a group of chemists and physicists from the Department of Chemistry Nano-Science Center at the University of Copenhagen and Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing. Their discovery “Ultrathin Reduced Graphene Oxide Films as Transparent Top-Contacts for Light Switchable Solid-State Molecular Junctions”  has just been published online in the prestigious periodical Advanced Materials. The breakthrough was made possible through an innovative use of the two dimensional carbon material graphene.

Here’s how the transistor works (from the news release),

The molecular computer chip is a sandwich built with one layer of gold, one of molecular components and one of the extremely thin carbon material graphene. The molecular transistor in the sandwich is switched on and of using a light impulse so one of the peculiar properties of graphene is highly useful. Even though graphene is made of carbon, it’s almost completely translucent.

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Using the new graphene chip researchers can now place their molecules with great precision. This makes it faster and easier to test the functionality of molecular wires, contacts and diodes so that chemists will know in no time whether they need to get back to their beakers to develop new functional molecules, explains Nørgaard [Kasper Nørgaard, an associate professor in chemistry at the University of Copenhagen].

“We’ve made a design, that’ll hold many different types of molecule” he says and goes on: “Because the graphene scaffold is closer to real chip design it does make it easier to test components, but of course it’s also a step on the road to making a real integrated circuit using molecular components. And we must not lose sight of the fact that molecular components do have to end up in an integrated circuit, if they are going to be any use at all in real life”.

In addition to the other benefits of this graphene chip, greater precision, etc., it is also greener, requiring no rare earths or heavy metals.

If you have problems accessing the news release, you can find the information in a June 20, 2013 news item on Nanowerk.

Otellini and nano

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Paul Otellini, Chief Executive Officer of Intel, just announced that the company will invest $6B to $8B for new and upgraded manufacturing facilities to produce 22 nanometre (nm) computer chips. From the news item on Nanowerk,

“Today’s announcement reflects the next tranche of the continued advancement of Moore’s Law and a further commitment to invest in the future of Intel and America,” said Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini. “The most immediate impact of our multi-billion-dollar investment will be the thousands of jobs associated with building a new fab and upgrading four others, and the high-wage, high-tech manufacturing jobs that follow.”

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The new investments reinforce Intel’s leadership in the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing in the world. Intel’s brand-new development fab in Oregon – to be called “D1X” – is scheduled for R&D startup in 2013. Upgrades are also planned for a total of four existing factories in Arizona (known as Fab 12 and Fab 32) and Oregon (known as D1C and D1D).

“Intel makes approximately 10 billion transistors per second. Our factories produce the most advanced computer technology in the world and these investments will create capacity for innovation we haven’t yet imagined,” said Brian Krzanich, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Manufacturing and Supply Chain. “Intel and the world of technology lie at the heart of this future. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we can retain a vibrant manufacturing economy here in the United States by focusing on the industries of the future.”

While Intel generates approximately three-fourths of its revenues overseas, it maintains three-fourths of its microprocessor manufacturing in the United States. This new investment commitment also allows the company to maintain its existing manufacturing employment base at these sites.

In early 2009 and in the wake of the 2008 economic meltdown, Otellini announced a $7B investment to upgrade four manufacturing facilities to produce 32 nm computer chips (my posting of February 11, 2009). So this 2010 announcement represents an ongoing commitment,

This new capital expenditure follows a U.S. investment announcement made in February 2009 to support state-of-the-art upgrades to its manufacturing process. Those upgrades resulted in 32nm process technology which has already produced computer chips being used today in PCs, servers, embedded and mobile devices around the world. Intel’s first 22nm microprocessors, codenamed “Ivy Bridge,” will be in production in late 2011 and will boost further levels of performance and power efficiency.

It’s interesting how these new nanoscale sized chips are the implementation of a top-down engineering approach to nanotechnology-enabled products resulting in ‘more of the same’ features, i.e. faster, more efficient. Where are the paradigm-shifting features and capabilities of the nanoscale?

Researcher infects self with computer virus

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It’s called body hacking—the practice of adding a magnetic chip or computer chip to your body—and a UK researcher recently became the first person to deliberately infect a computer chip he’d previously inserted into his body. From the news item on Nanowerk,

Dr Mark Gasson, from the School of Systems Engineering [University of Reading], contaminated a computer chip which had been inserted into his hand as part of research into human enhancement and the potential risks of implantable devices.

These results could have huge implications for implantable computing technologies used medically to improve health, such as heart pacemakers and cochlear implants, and as new applications are found to enhance healthy humans.

Dr. Gasson goes a little further than pacemakers and the like in his speculations,

“I believe it is necessary to acknowledge that our next evolutionary step may well mean that we all become part machine as we look to enhance ourselves. Indeed we may find that there are significant social pressures to have implantable technologies, either because it becomes as much of a social norm as say mobile phones, or because we’ll be disadvantaged if we do not. However we must be mindful of the new threats this step brings.” [emphases mine]

An interesting contrast to last week’s discussion of synthetic biology (on the occasion of Craig Venter’s May.20.10 announcement) where the focus is on creating new life forms, this more closely resembles the biotech discussion with its emphasis on genetic modifications and transgenic organisms although in this case, it’s not two biological organisms which are being grafted together but a biological organism and a machine.

I first came across body hacking last year in Tracy Picha’s article in Flare magazine’s August 2009 issue (blog entry here and here in my series on human enhancement and robots) but was focused on related questions.

This time after doing a little research about body hacking specifically, I found the queen of body hackers, Quinn Norton who is an early adopter (she hacked herself in 2005), a journalist, and a public speaker on the phenomenon. There’s a 2007 article by Cory Doctorow in Boing,  Boing (here) which leads you to a slide show put together by Norton, there’s a YouTube clip (here) of a talk Norton gave at the 23rd  (2007?) Chaos Communication Congress (Wikipedia entry about this hacker’s conference). If you’re squeamish (I am), you may not want to view Norton’s slide show or talk as she mentions there’s blood. From the 23rd Chaos Communication Congress webpage about Norton’s presentation,

What happens when we leave behind cosmetics and start to modify our bodies and minds to enhance who we are and what we can do? In this talk, journalist Quinn Norton explores how technology and flesh are coming together.

She’ll explain what’s possible and what people are doing, inside the established medical system and in the growing grey and black markets of body hacking. She’ll touch on her own experiences and talk about what’s coming next- and the ethical questions we will soon face as people choose to become something post human.

In September of 2005 journalist Quinn Norton began to explore the world of functional body modification with an implanted rare earth magnet that gave her a sense for Electro-Magnetic fields- until it began to go wrong. Since then she’s research the edges of what’s currently possible and what’s likely to become possible in the near term. Technology that was the traditional purview of the medical establishment is migrating into the hands of body hackers, and the medical establishment itself is finding ways to enhance humans, not just cure disease, and faces a new dilemma about whether and who should be enhanced. All of these advancements come with health dangers and unanticipated possibilities, as well as an ethical debate about what it means to be human. This talk will touch on the latest medical advances in neurological understanding and interface as well as physical enhancements in sports and prosthetics. But more time will be given to how the body hackers and renegades of the world are likely to go forward with or without societal permission. Quinn will touch on sensory extension, home surgery, medical tourism, nervous system interfaces, and controlling parts of our bodies and minds once thought to be nature’s fate for us.

How society is likely to react to enhancement technologies or enhanced humans? Early adopters face dangers including pain, disfigurement, and death- how will that shape progress? Technology and flesh are going to come together, but will they come together in you? Bring your own stories of modification, and you own ideas about what constitutes post human- and whether that’s a good or bad thing.

I don’t know if a practice that was transgressive in 2005 has become ‘normalized’ in 2010 such that an academic, Dr. Mark Gasson, can choose to study a hacked body (his own) as part of his research but it seems to have been rapidly adopted. Even Vancouver (which I consider to be a bit of a backwater) had body hackers by January 2006 as Gillian Shaw of the Vancouver Sun notes in her article,

Amal Graafstra and his girlfriend Jennifer Tomblin never have to worry about forgetting the keys to her Vancouver home or locking themselves out of Graafstra’s Volkswagen GT.

They can simply walk up to the door and, with a wave of a hand, the lock will open. Ditto for the computer. No more struggling to remember complicated passwords and no more lost keys.

As Graafstra puts it, he could be buck naked and still be carrying the virtual keys to unlock his home.

“I did it for the very real function of replacing keys. …

Think of the tiny ampoule that your vet implants under the skin of your dog or cat for identification if the animal is lost. All it takes is a special reader flashed over the skin and Fido can be on his way home.

Graafstra did much the same, only the three-by-13 millimetre chip was put under the skin of his left hand by a surgeon. A second one, measuring two-by-12 millimetres, is in his right hand.

Using his computer skills, Graafstra was able to modify the locks on his car and his house so they would be activated by a built-in reader.

There is a picture that goes with the story if you want to see what Graafstra’s ‘chipped’ hand looks like.

Dr. Mark Gasson’s chip, like Graafstra’s, gives building access but also includes mobile phone access and allows Gasson to be tracked and profiled. As for what happened when Gasson’s chip was infected—two things,

Once infected, the chip corrupted the main system used to communicate with it. Should other devices have been connected to the system, the virus would have been passed on.

[and]

While it is exciting to be the first person to become infected by a computer virus in this way, I found it a surprisingly violating experience because the implant is so intimately connected to me but the situation is potentially out of my control. [emphasis mine]

If you want to know more about the experience, Gasson will be presenting at the IEEE [Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers] International Symposium on Technology and Society in Australia next month (June 2010).

ETA May 28, 2010: Amal Graafstra will be at the IEEE meeting (aka ISTAS 2010) to offer his thoughts about it all. I’m not sure if he’s presenting or if this will be done on a more informal basis. If you want a preview, you can read this posting on the Amal Graafstra blog.

On a related note, I have previously posted on the idea of implanting devices in the brain:

Stephen Fry, Cambridge University, and nanotechnology (read the part about the video and Mark Welland’s speculations about a telephone in your brain)

Nano devices in your brain (a device that could melt into your brain)

Responsible science communication and magic bullets; lego and pasta analogies; sing about physics

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Cancer’s ‘magic bullet],  a term which has been around for decades, is falling into disuse and deservedly. So it’s disturbing to see it used by someone in McGill University’s (Montreal, Canada) communications department for a recent breakthrough by their researchers.

The reason ‘magic bullet for cancer’ has been falling into is disuse because it does not function well as a metaphor with what we now know about biology. (The term itself dates from the 19th century and chemist, Paul Erlich.) It continues to exist because it’s an easy (and lazy) way to get attention and headlines. Unfortunately, hyperbolic writing of this type obscures the extraordinary and exciting work that researchers are accomplishing. From the news release on the McGill website (also available on Nanowerk here),

A team of McGill Chemistry Department researchers led by Dr. Hanadi Sleiman has achieved a major breakthrough in the development of nanotubes – tiny “magic bullets” that could one day deliver drugs to specific diseased cells.

The lead researcher seems less inclined to irresponsible hyperbole,

One of the possible future applications for this discovery is cancer treatment. However, Sleiman cautions, “we are still far from being able to treat diseases using this technology; this is only a step in that direction. Researchers need to learn how to take these DNA nanostructures, such as the nanotubes here, and bring them back to biology to solve problems in nanomedicine, from drug delivery, to tissue engineering to sensors,” she said.

You’ll notice that the researcher says these ‘DNA nanotubes’ have to be brought “back to biology.” This comment brought to mind a recent post on 2020 Science (Andrew Maynard’s blog) about noted chemist and nanoscientist’s, George Whitesides, concerns/doubts about the direction for cancer and nanotechnology research. From Andrew’s post,

Cancer treatment has been a poster-child for nanotechnology for almost as long as I’ve been involved with the field. As far back as in 1999, a brochure on nanotechnology published by the US government described future “synthetic anti-body-like nanoscale drugs or devices that might seek out and destroy malignant cells wherever they might be in the body.”

…

So I was somewhat surprised to see the eminent chemist and nano-scientist George Whitesides questioning how much progress we’ve made in developing nanotechnology-based cancer treatments, in an article published in the Columbia Chronicle.

Whitesides comments are quite illuminating (from the article, Microscopic particles have huge possibilites [sic], by Ivana Susic,

George Whitesides, professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University, said that while the technology sounds impressive, he thinks the focus should be on using nanoparticles in imaging and diagnosing, not treatment.

The problem lies in being able to deliver the treatment to the right cells, and Whitesides said this has proven difficult.

“Cancer cells are abnormal cells, but they’re still us,” he said. [emphasis is mine]

The nanoparticles sent in to destroy the cancer cells may also destroy unaffected cells, because they can sometimes have cancer markers even if they’re healthy. Tumors have also been known to be “genetically flexible” and mutate around several different therapies, Whitesides explained. This keeps them from getting recognized by the therapeutic drugs.

The other problem with targeting cancer cells is the likelihood that only large tumors will be targeted, missing smaller clumps of developing tumors.

“We need something that finds isolated [cancer] clumps that’s somewhere else in the tissue … it’s not a tumor, it’s a whole bunch of tumors,” Whitesides said.

The upside to the treatment possibilities is that they buy the patient time, he said, which is very important to many cancer patients.

“It’s easy to say that one is going to have a particle that’s going to recognize the tumor once it gets there and will do something that triggers the death of the cell, it’s just that we don’t know how to do either one of these parts,” he said.

There is no simple solution. The more scientists learn about biology the more complicated it becomes, not less. [emphasis is mine] Whitesides said one effective way to deal with cancer is to reduce the risk of getting it by reducing the environmental factors that lead to cancer.

“It’s a biology problem, not a particle problem,” he said. [emphasis is mine]

If you are interested , do read Andrew’s post and the comments that follow as well as the article that includes Whitesides’ comments and quotes from Andrew in his guise as Chief Science Advisor for the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies.

All of this discussion follows on yesterday’s (Mar.17.10) post about how confusing inaccurate science reporting can be.

Moving onwards to two analogies, lego and pasta. Researchers at the University of Glasgow have ‘built’ inorganic (not carbon-based) molecular structures which could potentionally be used as more energy efficient and environmentally friendly catalysts for industrial purposes. From the news item on Nanowerk,

Researchers within the Department of Chemistry created hollow cube-based frameworks from polyoxometalates (POMs) – complex compounds made from metal and oxygen atoms – which stick together like LEGO bricks meaning a whole range of well-defined architectures can be developed with great ease.

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The molecular sensing aspects of this new material are related to the potassium and lithium ions, which sit loosely in cavities in the framework. These can be displaced by other positively charged ions such as transition metals or small organic molecules while at the same time leaving the framework intact.

These characteristics highlight some of the many potential uses and applications of POM frameworks, but their principle application is their use as catalysts – a molecule used to start or speed-up a chemical reaction making it more efficient, cost-effective and environmentally friendly.

Moving from lego to pasta with a short stop at the movies, we have MIT researchers describing how they and their team have found a way to ‘imprint’ computer chips by using a new electron-beam lithography process to encourage copolymers to self-assemble on the chip. (Currently, manufacturers use light lasers in a photolithographic process which is becoming less effective as chips grow ever smaller and light waves become too large to use.) From the news item on Nanowerk,

The new technique uses “copolymers” made of two different types of polymer. Berggren [Karl] compares a copolymer molecule to the characters played by Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin in the movie Midnight Run, a bounty hunter and a white-collar criminal who are handcuffed together but can’t stand each other. Ross [Caroline] prefers a homelier analogy: “You can think of it like a piece of spaghetti joined to a piece of tagliatelle,” she says. “These two chains don’t like to mix. So given the choice, all the spaghetti ends would go here, and all the tagliatelle ends would go there, but they can’t, because they’re joined together.” In their attempts to segregate themselves, the different types of polymer chain arrange themselves into predictable patterns. By varying 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.

ETA (March 18,2010): Dexter Johnson at Nanoclast continues with his his posts (maybe these will form a series?) about more accuracy in reporting, specifically the news item I’ve just highlighted. Check it out here.

To finish on a completely different note (pun intended), I have a link (courtesy of Dave Bruggeman of the Pasco Phronesis blog by way of the Science Cheerleader blog) to a website eponymously (not sure that’s the right term) named physicssongs.org. Do enjoy such titles as: I got Physics; Snel’s Law – Macarena Style!; and much, much more.

Tomorrow: I’m not sure if I’ll have time to do much more than link to it and point to some commentary but the UK’s Nanotechnologies Strategy has just been been released today.