Nanotube interconnects and hot Indian babes

A new technique that could lead to carbon nanotubes replacing copper as interconnects in integrated circuits will supply some rather sophisticated duct tape, but this is not the beginning of true nanotech-enabled computing. It was IBM that led the transition from aluminum to copper in 1998, but copper was never anything but a temporary solution. Nanotubes will be just as temporary until molecular and quantum computing are ready for prime time. What's happening now is that chips are getting so small and so fast that soon not even the copper interconnects will be able to bear the load and the heat over such small spaces. The Semiconductor Industry Association is worried about the problem and is funding research. Most or all other companies and research groups looking at carbon nanotubes to solve the interconnect problem are a using "direct-growth" method - meaning the nanotubes are literally created already in position on the chip. I do remember Arrowhead Research Corp. had funded a Duke researcher, Jie Liu, who said he had an alternate approach. I don't know how he's doing with that, so instead I'll gaze at these Indian beauties. There's really no reason they are adorning this post, other than the fact that they came with the story I'm linking to at newKerala.com. Versions of this story ran in newspapers around the world last week, but I'm betting they really know what they're doing at newKerala when it comes to making a dry semiconductor story seem a bit more interesting.