New technique allows production of complex microchip structures in one self-assembling step July 17, 2012 by David Chandler Researchers at MIT have developed a new approach to creating the complex array of wires and connections on microchips, using a system of self-assembling polymers. The work could eventually lead to a way of making more densely packed components on memory chips and other devices. new method — developed by MIT visiting doctoral student Amir Tavakkoli of the National University of Singapore, along with two other graduate students and three professors in MIT's departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE) — is described in a paper published this August in the journal Advanced Materials; the paper is available online now. The process is closely related to a method the same team described last month in a paper in Science, which makes it possible to produce three-dimensional configurations of wires and connections using a similar system of self-assembling polymers. In the new paper, the researchers describe a system for producing arrays of wires that meet at right angles, forming squares and rectangles. While these shapes are the basis for most microchip circuit layouts, they are quite difficult to produce through self-assembly. When molecules self-assemble, explains Caroline Ross, the Toyota Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and a co-author of the papers, they have a natural tendency to create hexagonal shapes — as in a honeycomb or an array of soap bubbles between sheets of glass. Read more at: New technique allows production of complex microchip structures in one self-assembling step Some cool advances!