Carbon Nanotube Electronics Will Lead to .6 Billion in Business

IBM is evaluating the potential of carbon nanotubes as the basis of a future nanoelectronics technology, as shown, for example, in this computer illustration of a top-gated field effect transistor

According to a new report from NanoMarkets LC, a market research and consulting firm based here, the unique electrical, thermal and physical properties of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) will create .6 billion in new business for the electronics and semiconductor sectors by 2009.

NanoMarkets' research
indicates that carbon nanotubes are already becoming a key enabling technology
that electronics firms should not dismiss as being a long way off.
The report, "Carbon Nanotube Electronics, A Technology Analysis
and Market Forecast," says that the biggest near-term opportunities for
"nanotube electronics" will come from the sensor, display and memory sectors.
Each of these markets will include more than 0 million in CNT-based products by
2007:
Nanotubes are already being used to produce tiny sensors,
potentially capable of distinguishing a single molecule. This could make
nanotubes the material of choice for the highly sensitive sensors required for
medical and homeland security applications. The low power consumption of
nanotube sensors also makes them ideal choice for battery-powered sensor
networks.
Nanotube-based field emission displays combine the high-quality
video of CRTs with the flatness of LCD and plasma displays, but without the
burn-in and poor viewing angles associated with today's flat-panel displays.
Samsung will release its CNT-driven television in 2006. Other large electronics
firms that are developing such displays include Hitachi , Sony, Mitsubishi and
Toshiba.
Nanotube-based memories will combine the speed of SRAM with the
non-volatility of Flash, which should allow them to quickly penetrate the
laptop, mobile phone and PDA markets. NanoMarkets believes this market could
generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.
NanoMarkets also notes that CNT-based interconnects and thermal
management could help provide CMOS with a much needed enabling technology as it
moves to 45-nm and 22-nm nodes. Nanotube-based logic, processors, interconnects
and thermal management solutions are already the subject of intense research by
IBM, Intel and NEC which believe that their work in this field will help CMOS
scale to smaller feature sizes.

SOURCE: Physics Today