The world's first computer weighed approximately 30 tons, and filled one whole floor of a building. In only twenty years, this evolved into a microprocessor measuring a mere 3 mm x 4 mm into which 2,300 transistors had been squeezed, and such downsizing continues to this day. Circuits have been reduced in size to less than one hundred millionths (10-8) of the size they were in the first days of transistor technology, and semiconductor chips packed with tens of millions of elements are now in commercial production.

Intel Corporation co-founder Gordon Moore predicted such change when he observed over a quarter of a century ago that the number of transistors on a given piece of silicon would double every couple of years — a profound insight that was dubbed "Moore's Law." In line with Moore's Law, it was predicted that semiconductor elements of less than one micron in size would become a reality in the early 21st century. The trouble is that at this size, the wave properties of electrons and resulting physical phenomena, such as the tunneling effect, hamper the functioning of semiconductor elements. It was said that a totally new kind of elements and manufacturing technology would be required to surmount this barrier. Nanotechnology would appear to hold out promise of such a solution. That is why so many different industries, fearing that semiconductor technology so vital to present-day society may have reached its limits, are putting their hopes in nanotechnology.