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Computers used to be as big as a room.

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But now they fit in your pocket,

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on your wrist

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and can even be implanted
inside of your body.

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How cool is that?

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And this has been enabled
by the miniaturization of transistors,

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which are the tiny switches
in the circuits

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at the heart of our computers.

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And it's been achieved
through decades of development

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and breakthroughs
in science and engineering

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and of billions of dollars of investment.

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But it's given us
vast amounts of computing,

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huge amounts of memory

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and the digital revolution
that we all experience and enjoy today.

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But the bad news is,

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we're about to hit a digital roadblock,

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as the rate of miniaturization
of transistors is slowing down.

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And this is happening
at exactly the same time

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as our innovation in software
is continuing relentlessly

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with artificial intelligence and big data.

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And our devices regularly perform
facial recognition or augment our reality

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or even drive cars down
our treacherous, chaotic roads.

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It's amazing.

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But if we don't keep up
with the appetite of our software,

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we could reach a point
in the development of our technology

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where the things that we could do
with software could, in fact, be limited

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by our hardware.

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We've all experienced the frustration
of an old smartphone or tablet

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grinding slowly to a halt over time

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under the ever-increasing weight
of software updates and new features.

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And it worked just fine
when we bought it not so long ago.

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But the hungry software engineers
have eaten up all the hardware capacity

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over time.

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The semiconductor industry
is very well aware of this

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and is working on
all sorts of creative solutions,

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such as going beyond transistors
to quantum computing

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or even working with transistors
in alternative architectures

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such as neural networks

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to make more robust
and efficient circuits.

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But these approaches
will take quite some time,

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and we're really looking for a much more
immediate solution to this problem.

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The reason why the rate of miniaturization
of transistors is slowing down

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is due to the ever-increasing complexity
of the manufacturing process.

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The transistor used to be
a big, bulky device,

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until the invent of the integrated circuit

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based on pure crystalline silicon wafers.

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And after 50 years
of continuous development,

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we can now achieve
transistor features dimensions

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down to 10 nanometers.

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You can fit more than
a billion transistors

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in a single square millimeter of silicon.

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And to put this into perspective:

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a human hair is 100 microns across.

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A red blood cell,
which is essentially invisible,

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is eight microns across,

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and you can place 12 across
the width of a human hair.

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But a transistor, in comparison,
is much smaller,

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at a tiny fraction of a micron across.

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You could place more than 260 transistors

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across a single red blood cell

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or more than 3,000 across
the width of a human hair.

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It really is incredible nanotechnology
in your pocket right now.

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And besides the obvious benefit

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of being able to place more,
smaller transistors on a chip,

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smaller transistors are faster switches,

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and smaller transistors are also
more efficient switches.

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So this combination has given us

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lower cost, higher performance
and higher efficiency electronics

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that we all enjoy today.

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To manufacture these integrated circuits,

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the transistors are built up
layer by layer,

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on a pure crystalline silicon wafer.

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And in an oversimplified sense,

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every tiny feature
of the circuit is projected

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onto the surface of the silicon wafer

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and recorded in a light-sensitive material

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and then etched through
the light-sensitive material

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to leave the pattern
in the underlying layers.

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And this process has been
dramatically improved over the years

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to give the electronics
performance we have today.

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But as the transistor features
get smaller and smaller,

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we're really approaching
the physical limitations

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of this manufacturing technique.

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The latest systems
for doing this patterning

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have become so complex

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that they reportedly cost
more than 100 million dollars each.

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And semiconductor factories
contain dozens of these machines.

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So people are seriously questioning:
Is this approach long-term viable?

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But we believe we can do
this chip manufacturing

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in a totally different
and much more cost-effective way

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using molecular engineering
and mimicking nature

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down at the nanoscale dimensions
of our transistors.

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As I said, the conventional manufacturing
takes every tiny feature of the circuit

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and projects it onto the silicon.

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But if you look at the structure
of an integrated circuit,

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the transistor arrays,

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many of the features are repeated
millions of times.

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It's a highly periodic structure.

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So we want to take advantage
of this periodicity

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in our alternative
manufacturing technique.

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We want to use self-assembling materials

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to naturally form the periodic structures

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that we need for our transistors.

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We do this with the materials,

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then the materials do the hard work
of the fine patterning,

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rather than pushing the projection
technology to its limits and beyond.

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Self-assembly is seen in nature
in many different places,

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from lipid membranes to cell structures,

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so we do know it can be a robust solution.

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If it's good enough for nature,
it should be good enough for us.

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So we want to take this naturally
occurring, robust self-assembly

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and use it for the manufacturing
of our semiconductor technology.

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One type of self-assemble material --

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it's called a block co-polymer --

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consists of two polymer chains
just a few tens of nanometers in length.

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But these chains hate each other.

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They repel each other,

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very much like oil and water
or my teenage son and daughter.

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(Laughter)

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But we cruelly bond them together,

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creating an inbuilt
frustration in the system,

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as they try to separate from each other.

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And in the bulk material,
there are billions of these,

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and the similar components
try to stick together,

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and the opposing components
try to separate from each other

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at the same time.

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And this has a built-in frustration,
a tension in the system.

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So it moves around, it squirms
until a shape is formed.

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And the natural self-assembled shape
that is formed is nanoscale,

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it's regular, it's periodic,
and it's long range,

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which is exactly what we need
for our transistor arrays.

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So we can use molecular engineering

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to design different shapes
of different sizes

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and of different periodicities.

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So for example, if we take
a symmetrical molecule,

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where the two polymer chains
are similar length,

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the natural self-assembled
structure that is formed

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is a long, meandering line,

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very much like a fingerprint.

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And the width of the fingerprint lines

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and the distance between them

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is determined by the lengths
of our polymer chains

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but also the level of built-in
frustration in the system.

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And we can even create
more elaborate structures

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if we use unsymmetrical molecules,

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where one polymer chain
is significantly shorter than the other.

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And the self-assembled structure
that forms in this case

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is with the shorter chains
forming a tight ball in the middle,

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and it's surrounded by the longer,
opposing polymer chains,

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forming a natural cylinder.

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And the size of this cylinder

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and the distance between
the cylinders, the periodicity,

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is again determined by how long
we make the polymer chains

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and the level of built-in frustration.

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So in other words, we're using
molecular engineering

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to self-assemble nanoscale structures

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that can be lines or cylinders
the size and periodicity of our design.

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We're using chemistry,
chemical engineering,

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to manufacture the nanoscale features
that we need for our transistors.

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But the ability
to self-assemble these structures

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only takes us half of the way,

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because we still need
to position these structures

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where we want the transistors
in the integrated circuit.

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But we can do this relatively easily

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using wide guide structures that pin down
the self-assembled structures,

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anchoring them in place

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and forcing the rest
of the self-assembled structures

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to lie parallel,

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aligned with our guide structure.

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For example, if we want to make
a fine, 40-nanometer line,

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which is very difficult to manufacture
with conventional projection technology,

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we can manufacture
a 120-nanometer guide structure

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with normal projection technology,

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and this structure will align three
of the 40-nanometer lines in between.

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So the materials are doing
the most difficult fine patterning.

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And we call this whole approach
"directed self-assembly."

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The challenge with directed self-assembly

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is that the whole system
needs to align almost perfectly,

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because any tiny defect in the structure
could cause a transistor failure.

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And because there are billions
of transistors in our circuit,

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we need an almost
molecularly perfect system.

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But we're going to extraordinary measures

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to achieve this,

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from the cleanliness of our chemistry

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to the careful processing
of these materials

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in the semiconductor factory

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to remove even the smallest
nanoscopic defects.

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So directed self-assembly
is an exciting new disruptive technology,

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but it is still in the development stage.

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But we're growing in confidence
that we could, in fact, introduce it

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to the semiconductor industry

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as a revolutionary new
manufacturing process

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in just the next few years.

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And if we can do this,
if we're successful,

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we'll be able to continue

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with the cost-effective
miniaturization of transistors,

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continue with the spectacular
expansion of computing

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and the digital revolution.

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And what's more, this could even
be the dawn of a new era

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of molecular manufacturing.

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How cool is that?

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Thank you.

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(Applause)