Mega computing in a speck of dust 

Jane Martinson in New York 

1. Imagine the power of 100 mainframe computers in a device no bigger than a grain of dust. Or a machine so small that it could be inserted into the seam of your shirt yet work at I00bn times the speed of the fastest of today’s PCs. 

2. Such a futuristic vision of ultrafast microscopic machines was opened up yesterday by the revelation that a team of American chemists and computer experts have created essential computing parts no bigger than a molecule. 

3. The breakthrough could revolutionise the commercial uses of technology and open the way for the new superfast computers - or nanocomputers - to be made an integral part of every man made object.

4. Researchers from the Hewlett-Packard company and the university of California at Los Angeles, who worked jointly on the project, claimed that the new computers would need much less power and could end the need to erase files constantly. 

5. Their work, published in yesterday’s edition of Science magazine, also promises an end to computer viruses, because of the extra power. 

6. Under existing technology, the circuits used for computers are created by directing beams of light onto silicon wafers. While such circuits have shrunk considerably over the past 30 years they are ultimately restricted by the size of each wavelength of light and it has become more difficult to etch increasingly complicated information on them. 

7. The crystals used in the molecular study can absorb information in the form of an electrical charge and organise it more efficiently. The UCLA team created a new chemical compound called rotaxane which they hope will eventually replace chips. 

8. The molecules at the heart of the research are so tiny that comparisons become meaningless, but they prompted futuristic visions. 

9. One report spoke of a "Fantastic Voyage" -style machine with tiny molecules travelling through a computer’s innards spotting problems. The Pentagon helped fund the research because of its potential use for defence equipment 

10. However, the use of molecular computing could still be some way off. "This is an important stepping stone, but we still have a long way to go," said a competing scientist yesterday. 

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