Computer maker IBM has gone into partnership with a glue specialist to create 'skyscraper' computers - building huge sandwiches of silicon chips by sticking layer after layer of chips covered with tiny components together.
It's hoped the process will create smartphones and PCs up to 1,000 times faster than today's - which may be on the market as early as 2013.
The company, 3M, also make heat resistant glues, adhesives used in the aerospace industry and sticky tape - but the hi-tech glues created in collaboration with IBM could actually be the key step towards making the next evolutionary leap in computing.
IBM has teamed up with adhesive maker 3M to create hi-tech new chips that 'sandwich' up to 100 layers of silicon to create processors 1,000 times as powerful as today's
Today's attempts at piling chips vertically - known as 3D packaging - face problems from overheating. New glues could potentially conduct heat through a stack of densely-packed chips and away from logic circuits that could be burnt out by the heat.
The research aims to create 'stacks' of up to 100 layers of silicon.
Crucial to the development of the new chips will be techniques that allow IBM to slather glue over 100s of chips at once. Current techniques for gluing chips are described as being akin to frosting a cake slice by slice.
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