Man's Next Migration

MIT researchers fabricate chips that utilize molecules that deposit on empty chips that arrange into patterns for tiny functioning circuits. This process is done through a familiar method used in the past 50 years called photolithography.

Computer chips coated with light-sensitive material is exposed to light passing through a patterned mask. The photoresisting areas harden due to the light exposure and after the unhardened areas are washed away, the patterned area will remain. Using polymer molecules as guides that form specific patterns, these polymers harden to glass under plasma exposure and becomes the photoresistive material.

To date, computer chip fabrication is an expensive process that requires complex processes. The current research will move to self-assembling molecules that will create patterns and produce functional circuits.

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