It's an axiom in real estate: when land gets expensive, build up. For 30 years, chip designers have considered whether building integrated circuits with multiple layers might create cheaper, more powerful chips. Previous attempts to build such three-dimensional chips have failed or proved too expensive, but Santa Clara, CA-based startup Matrix Semiconductor plans to bring the first one to market in just a few months. While Matrix's techniques won't likely result in more computing power, they will produce cheaper chips for certain applications, like memory.

Select from the choices above to read the entire article.