By Najib Altawell Nanoelectronic is concerned with understanding and exploiting the properties of devices, which have dimensions at the nanometre scale.

Microelectronics will gradually evolve into nano-electronic. In fact, this has already happened as can be seen from the smallest feature size of present integrated circuits, which is below of one micrometer. It is currently believed that optical lithography can be used for ground rules down to 150 nm and might even be used for the 100 nm generation and below. This would imply an increasing process and mask complexity, and consequently, increasing the cost.

Molecular-scale electronic has been widely touted as “the next step” in electronic miniaturization, with theory and research suggesting that single molecules may have the capability to take the place of today’s much larger electronic components.

Therefore, what are the advantages of scaling down of devices?

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The term set-top box will become something of a misnomer in the near future, as most displays will become too thin to allow a box to placed on top of them. As the price of plasma & LCD displays has plummeted and their image quality has improved, they are popping up in homes everywhere.

Although they are the darlings of the media and the generic for flat panel display in the minds of many, plasmas are about to be in a serious fight with other technologies for the flat panel crown.

LCD displays, seen on the desktop for years as computer monitors, and commonplace in smaller flat panel TVs, are finally increasing in size to the point they are becoming a rival to plasmas in the 42″ – 50” size range. Picture quality is similar to plasmas; however LCDs are immune to the burn-in that can affect plasma displays. This burn-in occurs when plasma units are used to display static images such as video game screens and stock or sports tickers.

Plasmas generally have an edge in the ability to produce deeper blacks and more saturated colors than LCDs. Plasmas are also better at producing full motion video than LCDs because of the response time of the LCD panels, although this difference is disappearing. (more…)

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