Manufacturability versus Unmanufacturability

It is proposed to expand on initial results [1] and to develop a set of rules or guidelines that define the boundary between what is actually manufactureable at the nanoscale on the basis of the various techniques used in the fabrication process and what is intrinsically unmanufactureable. Manufacture requires high yield to tight tolerance to a pre-ordained specification, and little of the current nanoscience literature addresses the issue of manufacturability. It is the absence of such rules or guidelines that prevent nanotechnology journals to distinguish clearly between nanoscience and nanotechnology. The application of the rules will be time-dependent, in that as new methods of fabrication are developed, or current methods of fabrication evolve: some of the rules, however, such as the one referred to1 are inviolable. The rules will focus on the point at which intrinsic feature-to-feature variability kills off any chance of meeting current standards in manufacturing such as six-sigma yield, or perhaps even four-sigma yield of fault-tolerant architectures. Although this look like a negative project at first sight, the aim is entirely positive, to delineate those areas where researchers and developers of new device ideas can be confident of achieving a manufactureable process.

[1] M J Kelly,' Intrinsic top-down unmanufacturability', Nanotechnology 22 234303 (2011)

I indent that the outputs should have a major impact on
(i) the research community so that it chooses further research projects that meet the criteria for manufacturability, either now on in the foreseeable future,
(ii) the industrial sector, including consulting firms, manufacturing companies (and manufacturers of original equipment), so that they will be more able to deploy future resources more effectively to get practical and commercial breakthroughs, and
(iii) the general public who will understand that research resources are being optimally deployed to improve their lot, and that 'blue skies' research will be better focussed on places where real breakthroughs would be most likely to be obtained.