Microsoft Word Kurzweil, Ray The Singularity Is Near doc

The Bridge to 3-D Molecular Computing. 
Intermediate steps are already under way: new technologies that will lead 
to the sixth paradigm of molecular three-dimensional computing include nanotubes and nanotube circuitry, molecular 
computing, self-assembly in nanotube circuits, biological systems emulating circuit assembly, computing with DNA, 
spintronics (computing with the spin of electrons), computing with light, and quantum computing. Many of these 
independent technologies can be integrated into computational systems that will eventually approach the theoretical 
maximum capacity of matter and energy to perform computation and will far outpace the computational capacities of a 
human brain. 
One approach is to build three-dimensional circuits using "conventional" silicon lithography. Matrix 
Semiconductor is already selling memory chips that contain vertically stacked planes of transistors rather than one flat 
layer.
4
Since a single 3-D chip can hold more memory, overall product size is reduced, so Matrix is initially targeting 
portable electronics, where it aims to compete with flash memory (used in cell phones and digital cameras because it 
does not lose information when the power is turned off). The stacked circuitry also reduces the overall cost per bit. 
Another approach comes from one of Matrix's competitors, Fujio Masuoka, a former Toshiba engineer who invented 
flash memory. Masuoka claims that his novel memory design, which looks like a cylinder, reduces the size and cost-
per-bit of memory by a factor of ten compared to flat chips.
5
Working prototypes of three-dimensional silicon chips 
have also been demonstrated at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Center for Gigascale Integration and at the MIT 
Media Lab. 
Tokyo's Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) has demonstrated a dramatic 3-D technology using 
electron-beam lithography, which can create arbitrary three-dimensional structures with feature sizes (such as 
transistors) as small as ten nanometers.
6
NTT demonstrated the technology by creating a high-resolution model of the 
Earth sixty microns in size with ten-nanometer features. NTT says the technology is applicable to nanofabrication of 
electronic devices such as semiconductors, as well as creating nanoscale mechanical systems.