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I got this newsletter today, and thought I would pass it along. More confirmation that everything nano is coming. The obvious question is when will it arrive. This author says be patient. I think things will move faster than anyone realizes.

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What's Bugging Nano?
By Yiannis G. Mostrous and GS Early

A couple weeks ago in my investment letter The Real Nanotech Investor, my colleague--nanotech scientist and consultant Tim Harper--reflected on a keynote address he gave at a nanotech conference six years ago. He was at the same conference this year and realized that the reason there’s consternation in the nanotech sector right now isn’t that the companies aren’t doing the work; it’s that the venture capitalists (VC) are using an outmoded method for funding, promoting and developing nanotechs.

The model came from working with the dot-coms, and the VCs are using the methodology with nanotech. The problem is nanotech doesn’t fit as neatly into that paradigm, much to the current chagrin of the overzealous VCs.

I’ve been mulling over that concept and Tim’s view that nanotech takes about seven to 10 years to get out of the lab and into a product phase. That doesn’t mean we have another decade to wait for companies to start making money from their research; that’s already begun.

We’re at about the point of inflection where many technologies are taking wing in the marketplace. The problems the VCs face is that these technologies don’t always “plug in” like dot-coms did.

Then, last week, my product manager Josh asked me about Tim’s article and about nanotech in computers. It was then that this edition of Nanotech Investing News was born. Well, that and the following news story.

It was this confluence of stories and ideas that clarified the point Tim was making, the question Josh wanted answered and the reality of nanotech in 2008.

Unlike the familiar dot-com tech run, more often than not, nanotech has to build a medium or industry as well as a product to inhabit the medium, as is the case with a recent story regarding one of my favorite big nano companies, Toshiba. There isn’t a nanotech Internet to hook apps into; there isn’t an equivalent major spending boom for fiber-optic networks and a wide, open telecom environment. There’s just the unsexy scientific and strategic work of innovating and adapting technologies for existing and future markets.

For example, there’s been great theoretical promise for carbon nanotubes in developing smaller, faster silicon processors. As the lithography on semiconductors gets more intricate, copper becomes a less-efficient conductor and will soon reach its limits of advantage.

Nanotubes, organic conductors and other next generation options have been less than ideal because, as mentioned earlier, you have to move away from the complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) computing world that now occupies the planet. That means you have to start building niche equipment for niche applications until the world decides all the CMOS stuff we’ve accumulated is passé, and it’s time to go quantum, nano or organic.

Since that day is a long way into the future, the other option is to find a way to make nano go old school, and plug it into CMOS technology. Sure, it’s kind of unexciting evolutionary instead of revolutionary stuff, but that’s the way the world works for the most part. And after building this cutting-edge carbon nanotube and placing it in a CMOS chip, what kind of speed do we get from this new performer? One gigahertz. Yep, one.

But don’t get too upset; this is actually very good news. This is a proof of concept: You can use nanotubes where you once used copper wires. This is a big deal. Now Stanford University and Toshiba researchers will have to expand their efforts and juice these processors up and see what they can do with more nanotube wires, purer nanotubes, etc.

So now we’re here in the nanotech era, and yet we’re looking at years of research and development (R&D) before we likely see nanotubes running in CMOS equipment.

On the other side of the coin, there’s a story today about the work Nokia Oy and the University of Cambridge are doing on the next generation of mobile phones using nanotechnologies. There’s even a Morph exhibit at the New York City Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

I see both stories as linked because it’s human nature, especially for investors, to look for the next hot thing. And these two stories link the hope to the reality.

The fact is nanotech is already beginning to change the way we build, fly, ski, ride and dress. Soon our medicines, computers and most of our daily lives will be influenced by various nanotechnologies. But that time isn’t here yet.

It’s coming, but it’s not going to slam down like the dot-com revolution; it’s going to be a tidal shift that happens over time. And although the results will be dramatic, they won’t necessarily be perceptible on a quarterly basis.

Investors should certainly get involved—but responsibly and patiently.