Re: is submicron and neno same

From: Danny at Chrastina dot net (danny_at_chrastina.notreally)
Date: 02/03/05 

Date: 3 Feb 2005 17:36:59 GMT

On Wed, 2 Feb 2005, din wrote:

> we are always talking about neno technology. Can anyone of you please
> tell me whether the submicron and neno technology both are same thing?
> if there is any diffrence then what is it.

         "Submicron" is a term which belongs mainly to the semiconductor
industry: chips where the feature size is currently of the order of 100nm
or less. The "nano" prefix is can be applied to everything and nothing and
has caught the imagination of science fiction writers and venture
capitalists everywhere.

         There are two kind of nano, or rather two ends of the spectrum: at
one end there is the kind of thing mentioned in
http://www.forbes.com/home/investmentnewsletters/2004/10/21/cz_jw_1021soapbox.html

: metal oxide nanowires and that. In this case "nano" just means "of the
order of 1 nanometre in size". And the other end are people who talk about
small dekstop boxes which could churn out self-replicating nanobots as if
anybody had any idea about how to go about making such a thing. In this
case "nano" means "totally made up without basis in known science". I
mean, I've seen hypothetical pictures of artificial red blood cells which
looked like the Death Star. Maybe I could add a third dimension to this
spectrum by mentioning life sciences: nature has been working on
nanotechnology for 4 billion years and it's us.[1] I notice we're on the
macro scale.

         I also notice that there's no newsgroup called "sci.submicrontech". 

-- 
 	Dr. Danny Chrastina.
1. By "us" I mean the whole family tree of carbon-based life, but that 
would have made the sentence less snappy.
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