IEEE Spectrum July, 2016 - 4

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Editor in chiEf

Susan Hassler, s.hassler@ieee.org
ExEcutivE Editor

Glenn Zorpette, g.zorpette@ieee.org
Editorial dirEctor, digital

Harry Goldstein, h.goldstein@ieee.org
Managing Editor

Elizabeth A. Bretz, e.bretz@ieee.org
SEnior art dirEctor

Mark Montgomery, m.montgomery@ieee.org
SEnior EditorS

Stephen Cass (Resources), cass.s@ieee.org
Erico Guizzo (Digital), e.guizzo@ieee.org
Jean Kumagai, j.kumagai@ieee.org
Samuel K. Moore (News), s.k.moore@ieee.org
Tekla S. Perry, t.perry@ieee.org
Philip E. Ross, p.ross@ieee.org
David Schneider, d.a.schneider@ieee.org
Brandon Palacio, b.palacio@ieee.org
Randi Klett, randi.klett@ieee.org
aSSociatE art dirEctor Erik Vrielink, e.vrielink@ieee.org
dEputy art dirEctor

photography dirEctor

Carbon Country

aSSociatE EditorS

Celia Gorman (Multimedia), celia.gorman@ieee.org
Amy Nordrum, a.nordrum@ieee.org
vidEo producEr Kristen Clark, kristen.clark@ieee.org
aSSiStant Editor Willie D. Jones, w.jones@ieee.org
SEnior copy Editor Joseph N. Levine, j.levine@ieee.org
copy Editor Michele Kogon, m.kogon@ieee.org
Editorial rESEarchEr Alan Gardner, a.gardner@ieee.org

a x Shul a k er a nd hiS colleagueS made a splash in 2013

when they published a paper in Nature that described the
first computer to use carbon-nanotube transistors. But, as
with many research projects, that paper was the product of a
lot of hard, unglamorous work. Months earlier, for example,
team members pulled an all-nighter packing and moving test
equipment, including a probe station [above], about 30 miles
north, from their base at Stanford to the IEEE International
Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco. The team had been invited to perform a live demonstration of a handshaking robot that uses
carbon-nanotube circuitry, and they needed the gear to connect those
circuits to the outside world.
Since then, the station has largely remained in the lab, where Shulaker
and his colleagues have worked on strategies to make the mass manufacture of carbon-nanotube circuitry commercially viable. The effort is
described in this issue in "Computing With Carbon Nanotubes."
Shulaker, who recently completed his Ph.D., has been involved in
the research since 2009. He was just finishing his freshman year at
Stanford when he was drawn to the carbon-nanotube work being conducted in the labs of professors Subhasish Mitra and H.-S. Philip Wong,
his coauthors on this month's article. The choice was a serendipitous
one, Shulaker says. Silicon devices are approaching hard limits, and
the semiconductor industry is hunting for strategies that will let it continue to make faster and cheaper circuits. "It's rare to have such a mature industry have so much uncertainty," he says.
Shulaker will continue work on carbon nanotubes in his laboratory at
MIT, where he will start as an assistant professor this year. "I think my students will be in an even better position than I was in," he says, "because
now we have enough building blocks to do some really amazing things." n

adMiniStrativE aSSiStant

Ramona L. Foster, r.foster@ieee.org
contributing EditorS

Evan Ackerman, Mark Anderson, John Blau, Robert N.
Charette, Peter Fairley, Tam Harbert, Mark Harris, David
Kushner, Robert W. Lucky, Paul McFedries, Prachi Patel,
Richard Stevenson, Lawrence Ulrich, Paul Wallich
Peter Tuohy
Roy Carubia
SEnior ElEctronic layout SpEcialiSt Bonnie Nani
dirEctor, pEriodicalS production SErvicES
Editorial & WEb production ManagEr

Shannan Brown
Jacqueline L. Parker
MultiMEdia production SpEcialiSt Michael Spector
product ManagEr, digital

WEb production coordinator

Editorial adviSory board

Susan Hassler, Chair; David Brock, Jason Cong*, Sudhir Dixit,
Limor Fried, Robert Hebner, Joseph J. Helble, Grant Jacoby, Leah
Jamieson, Deepa Kundur, Norberto Lerendegui, Steve Mann,
Allison March, Jacob Østergaard, Umit Ozguner, Thrasos Pappas,
John Rogers, Jonathan Rothberg, Umar Saif, Takao Someya,
Yu Zheng, Kun Zhou, Edward Zyszkowski
* Chinese-language edition
Editorial / advErtiSing corrESpondEncE

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum July, 2016