Two chipmakers are developing 3-D chips to increase semiconductor power and speed by a factor of 10–at no additional cost.
Tohoku University professor Fujio Masuoka, who invented flash memory, and a small team of researchers plan to have a 3-D chip ready in five years.

Matrix Semiconductor, with has raised $80 million, says it has already created a 3-D chip that it will start selling by year-end, mainly to replace flash memory in digital cameras.