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 THE STAT 26Percentage of wireless customers who use their cell phones to take picturesMore Vitals
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FEBRUARY 23, 2005
Slugfest in the Nanotech Trenches Competitors in this young field, fearful of being elbowed aside, are going all out to establish themselves as the leaders. With the stakes so high, it's no wonder
If baseball fans think the war of words between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees is getting testy, they should take a trip into the world of nanotechnology research, where the folks in lab coats are starting to make the ballplayers look downright chummy. On Feb. 1, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ ) announced what sounded like a major breakthrough in a press release enthusiastically titled, "Eliminating the Need for Transistors." The release said HP had built a tiny, molecule-scale switch called a "crossbar latch" that could perform the so-called logic operations of a computer on an unprecedentedly small scale (see BW Online, 2/1/05, "HP Prints a New Chapter in Circuitry"). "We are reinventing the computer at the molecular scale," said Stan Williams, a senior HP fellow, in the release. Competitors in the field weren't so impressed. "I frankly think it's less significant than they are making it out to be" says Mark Horowitz, a physicist who specializes in circuitry and computer chip architecture at Stanford University, just down the road from HP's Silicon Valley research labs. "They aren't saying any mistruths, but there are more hurdles that need to be overcome in order for this to have" an actual integrated circuit. Other scientists were less polite, one even going so far as to call HP's news "twaddle." CROSSED SWORDS. So who's right? It's hard to say. Williams is one of the most respected researchers in the emerging field of nanotechnology and has been an outspoken pragmatist about its potential (see "A Nanotech Pioneer's Sober Assessment"). He's clear-eyed about his own research, and he says the first simple computer memory products based on his work probably won't hit the market for five years. He even jokes that he has been so outspoken about the need to turn down the nanotech hype that other researchers have stopped inviting him to nanotech business conferences. "Many of the hypsters were trying to make a quick buck one way or another," he says. To many, such scrapping among a field's luminaries may seem just a bit, well, unseemly, if not more than a little entertaining. But the truth is, scientists are a lot more competitive than you think, and the crossing of research swords is really nothing new. From electronics in the '50s to the dot-coms of the '90s, every new technology has its "irrational exuberance" stage -- complete with buzzwords, pie-in-the-sky predictions, testy exchanges among researchers, and a dozen false starts for every major breakthrough. TANTALIZING GAP. No doubt, that's where nanotechnology research is right now. Scientists are learning how to unlock extraordinary capabilities in commonplace materials by manipulating them on a molecular -- sometimes atomic -- scale. Nanotech has the potential to create everything from faster and smaller computer chips, to smart medicines, to straight-flying golf balls, and even car windshields that repel water without wipers (see BW Cover Story, 2/14/05, "The Business of Nanotech"). But in a field with literally thousands of possible applications, a huge gap often exists between what's theoretically possible in a lab and what can be reliably produced for commercial use. For nano-entrepreneurs and scientists, that gap makes the field especially tantalizing. And it makes it all the more frustrating when a competitor's press release claims he has jumped that gap with ease. So how can you tell who's the real deal? The term "nano," for the most part, means little more than a size in the range of 1 to 100 nanometers. The width of a human hair, for example, is about 80,000 nanometers. The technology side of the equation comes into play with research into the surprising behavior of various materials when manipulated on that tiny level. AN EMERGING SCIENCE. That research encompasses thousands of niche applications in physics, chemistry, and biology. So far, simple applications of nanotechnology, like using ultrafine particles to strengthen composite materials, are already available. More sophisticated uses are on the way. But materials with the most incredible theoretical applications, such as integrated circuits built with superstrong, superconductive carbon nanotubes, may prove impractical to develop commercially, or fail on their way to market. Match high expectations in a wide-open field that's more of an emerging science than an emerging industry and you have a recipe for sniping. With few companies offering products yet and even fewer seeing significant sales, most nanotech players are in a mad rush to win a piece of the estimated $5 billion in research funding earmarked by the U.S. government for universities and labs everywhere from California to Albany, N.Y. Meanwhile, investors, venture capitalists, and large corporations are all still suffering from a tech-boom hangover. "Nobody is raising venture capital today who doesn't have a deep and abiding memory of that boom" says Matthew Nordan, an analyst at Lux Research, a nanotechnology research firm (see "High IPO Hurdles for Nanotechs"). As a result, they're much more cautious about funding this time around, Nordan says.
BW MALL
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