MITRE Releases Designs for Molecular-Scale Computers

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Bedford, Massachusetts, March 7, 2000 — A 40-page paper published in the March issue of the journal Proceedings of the IEEE and on the MITRE Corporation's Web site shows what ultra-miniaturized computers of the future might actually "look" like. The paper, by Dr. James Ellenbogen, principal scientist of MITRE's Nanosystems Group, and his associate, Christopher Love, presents unique designs for computer processor circuits made from single molecules.

The designs describe computer circuits that would be no more than about 10 nanometers (billionths of a meter) wide. One of these circuits is a molecular electronic adder. If built, it would add two numbers when a small electrical current is passed through it. The molecular adder would consist of a single molecule.

These circuit designs for a nanometer-scale computer or "nanocomputer" represent a radical reduction in scale from the solid-state components used in the current generation of microcomputers. The smallest microcomputer circuits produced today span at least several microns—several thousand nanometers. "That means up to 1 million molecular computer components might fit in the area of a single modern solid-state component," says Ellenbogen. The "next logical step" he says, is to fabricate and test these molecular circuits.

The MITRE molecular circuit designs build upon recent experimental advances in the fabrication and demonstration of molecular wires and diode switches made by investigators at a number of universities, including Yale, Rice, and Penn State. According to Dr. Ellenbogen, the designs may be viewed as "a kind of systems engineering plan" on the molecular scale. The plan would integrate the previously demonstrated molecular-scale switches and wires to create monomolecular circuit structures one million times smaller in area than those produced using current microelectronics technology.

"The advanced computers that will come to dominate the 21st century will be no bigger than grains of salt, and they will be integrated from components no bigger than individual molecules," says Ellenbogen.

"These might be applied to control micro-scale machines," he adds. "One of our ongoing efforts is the development of a tiny robot, less than one-quarter of an inch long, which is to be controlled by a number of salt-grain size nanocomputers."

MITRE's Nanosystems Group has been conducting a broadly based research program in nanoscience and nanotechnology since 1992. MITRE is a not-for profit company working in the public interest that provides technical support to the government. MITRE operates Federally Funded Research and Development Centers, providing systems engineering and integration for the Defense Department, systems research and development for the Federal Aviation Administration, and systems engineering for the Internal Revenue Service.

The company employs approximately 4,000 technical and support staff at its offices in Bedford, MA, and Northern Virginia, and at more than 60 sites throughout the world.

Copies of "Architectures for Molecular Electronic Computers" can be downloaded at MITRE's Nanotech Web site (www.mitre.org/tech/nanotech/).

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