Sunday Times - London via Dow Jones Interactive
May  4, 2000

SILICON FEELS THE SQUEEZE

Mark Prigg

   The problem with silicon chips is that you can make them only so
small. In between each layer of circuitry there has to be an
insulating layer to prevent short circuiting, and the minimum
thickness for this was thought to be 10 atoms.

   Chip manufacturers, who currently produce processors with 12-atom
insulating layers, will reach this limit in the next two years.
However, researchers at Bell Labs in New Jersey have now managed to
create a reliable chip design with an insulation layer just six atoms
thick. This gives the industry until around 2005 before it has to
find an alternative to silicon, and means that faster PCs can be made
with existing manufacturing processes.