Interesting that DNA can exhibit such fine-grained usefulness in engineering design when, by Darwin’s lights, it is cobbled together by a sloppy unguided evolutionary process. It would seem that when the instruments we use are more refined than the things we are designing, the instruments themselves are likely to be the product of design.
Building circuit boards using DNA scaffolding
By Darren Quick
There have been a few breakthroughs in recent years that hold the promise of sustaining Moore’s Law for some time to come. These include attaching molecules to silicon and replacing copper interconnects with graphene. Now IBM are proposing a new way to pack more power and speed into computer chips by using DNA molecules as scaffolding for transistors fabricated with carbon nanotubes and silicon wires.
The new approach developed by scientists at IBM and the California Institute of Technology uses DNA molecules as scaffolding or miniature circuit boards for the precise assembly of components such as millions of carbon nanotubes, nanowires and nanoparticles, that could be deposited and self-assembled into precise patterns by sticking to the DNA molecules.
