News Gold and laser key to 3D circuits

Interesting development, that could lead to more powerful processors and a new storage medium:

Physicists in Shanghai have developed a revolutionary new technique for building three-dimensional micro-circuits, using gold oxide, chunks of glass and some high powered lasers to create a kind of 3D dot-matrix transistor-printer.

Taking circuit boards into 3D is a logical and neccessary next step: although chip makers are squeezing as much as they can on to circuit boards, going up as well as out would help enormously. In fact, finding an inexpensive and reliable way of creating a 3D circuit is something of a holy grail for scientists in the field.

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