They'll be cheap because they can be produced in test tubes or even made to self-produce in extremely regular patterns, like the geometric shapes in an Escher drawing. In fact, Hewlett-Packard already has developed such molecular switches in its research laboratories. Birnbaum says he would not be surprised to see working prototypes within five years. But all is not honey and sweetness. The problem with using molecules is that millions of defects will occur because they don't strictly obey binary rules.
Molecules are sometimes in the zero state, sometimes in the one state and sometimes in between.
So the structures needed to support molecular computing demand an architecture that is defect-tolerant, a whole new area of research. Evidence for sustained interest in molecular computing comes on the government side as well. During the last four years, he has published more than 250 articles on information technology. He is adjunct professor at The George Washington University and a regular guest on Public Interest , which airs on National Public Radio.