When Intel "does" 45 nm, it means that the smallest design feature on a chip, usually the width of a wire, is about 45 nm. Chipmakers explicitly specify each c

When Intel "does" 45 nm, it means that the smallest design feature on a chip, usually the width of a wire, is about 45 nm. Chipmakers explicitly specify each chip, and then burn the actual image of the chip using photolithography; they basically print the whole thing. The technology in the article is a completely different thing: by mixing viruses and chemicals in a bulk solution, they (more or less) get the anode/cathode layers to self-assemble. It turns out that the structures are 4 µm thick (edit: comments in the original article suggest 32 nm features). So the materials are interesting, and the large scale at which humans get to work to make small scale devices is super interesting.