Nanotechnology has already a profound place in manufacturing in many fields of science and engineering. It appears that the computer science and medicine may be most likely affected, since they both are directed towards molecular scale manipulation of matter. Nevertheless, other fields of application, like materials science, automotive industry and space research, will be greatly benefited from the evolution of nanotechnology.

The number of individual electronic components on a microprocessor has increased from 20,000 transistors in 1980, to 125 million in the latest silicon chips, with related increase in computer power and memory. The chip structures are more compact and the large number of transistors has allowed for an increase of the computer speed, since the electrical signal has less distance to travel between two transistors. Small sizes of the microchips resulted in smaller and, yet, more powerful computer systems, which can be transported more easily. The main process used for the fabrication of microchips is photolithography. It appears, however, that this method has already reached its limits