Three discussants mention nanotechnology:
Marc Andreessen, Netscape Communications
David Chaum, DigiCash
Doug Engelbart, Bootstrap Institute
Excerpts:
Question: How long will Moore's Law continue to be relevant?
Answer: Marc Andreessen: Through 2020, when we will see a discontinuous
improvement in performance rejoining a new Moore's Law curve based on a
transition toward molecular nanotechnology.
Question: When will quantum effects and other problems require radically new
chip technologies?
Answer: Marc Andreessen: Probably until about 2007. By that time, however,
dramatically new chip technologies based on quantum dots and tunneling will
have begun to arrive.
Answer: David Chaum: I'm not sure we will be forced to develop
nanotechnology, but I sure hope we do.
Answer: Doug Engelbart: We'll run out of gas in 10 years. Eventually we'll
be arranging individual molecules.
Question: Will we manufacture chips in zero-gravity environments in orbital
fabs anytime soon?
Answer: Marc Andreessen: Only as an unlikely and distant possibility.
Nanotechnology will have begun to bear fruit before zero-gravity chip
manufacturing makes sense.
The Engelbart comment above is ambiguous since one can manipulate individual
atoms without having a nanotechnological capability; however, in the
introductory article at http://www.byte.com/art/9612/sec6/art6.htm
the following appears:
Adds Doug Engelbart, legendary inventor of computing technology and
founding director of the Bootstrap Institute: "If you look at the whole
array of digital technology, the microprocessor is just a part of that.
Nanotechnology will eventually take us way beyond [microprocessors]."
Gregory Sullivan