Powerful. Faster. Energy efficient. Easier to manufacture. that pretty heady combination is possible because DNA molecules can be used as scaffolding so carbon nanotubes can assemble themselves into precise patterns. This could help chip manufacturers move from to 22-nm or lower, according to IBM.

And that could help processor designers keep pace with Moore's Law - the 40-plus-year-old prediction by Gordon Moore that the number of will double every two years.

"The cost involved in shrinking features to improve performance is a limiting factor in keeping pace with Moore's Law and a concern across the semiconductor industry," said Spike Narayan, manager of science and Technology at the IBM Research group, in a statement. "The combination of this directed self-assembly with today's fabrication technology eventually could lead to substantial savings in the most expensive and challenging part of the chip-making process."

While companies, like Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., have long been cramming more and more transistors -- the building blocks of the processor -- onto a chip, some observers have long predicted that leakage and energy consumption would become significant roadblocks to the law at some point.

And researchers are hot on the trail of technologies that will allow them to continue shrinking chips, while also making them more powerful and less expensive to build.