FRAMINGHAM (02/11/2000) - The White House is trying to bring more money and attention to an area of research that promises to radically change the way information technology professionals go about their jobs.

Nanotechnology may be decades away from actual use, but when - or if - it arrives, it will turn computing on its head. Nanotechnology involves the creation of tiny, possibly even molecule-size, machines and materials, using chemical rather than mechanical processes.

As envisioned, this technology could be used to build CPUs in which molecules serve as diodes, wires and transistors - all linked chemically. From these CPUs, tiny computing devices would emerge that use very little power and yet are millions or billions of times more powerful than today's Pentium chips.

New kinds of processing logic would be needed to operate such systems.

Processing power could be based entirely in applications, not in operating systems, researchers said.

These new computers "would be fantastically dense and cheap and easy to make because they would be assembled by the rules of chemistry - just kind of mixed-together stuff," said Daniel T. Colbert, a nanotechnology researcher at Rice University in Houston.

For IT professionals, however, nanotechnology won't become a serious consideration for many years. "It's always useful to stay up-to-date. But for something this radical, I'm not sure how you prepare," said Christine Peterson, executive director of the Foresight Institute, a nonprofit nanotechnology education center in Palo Alto, Calif.

The White House budget for the next fiscal year calls for an 84 percent increase in government investment in nanotechnology research, from $270 million to $497 million. "There is a lot of basic research to be done," said Eugene Wong, an assistant director at the National Science Foundation in Arlington, Va.

One of the fastest-developing areas in nanotechnology is the synthesis of new carbon-based materials. At Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. in Fort Worth, Texas, engineers are hoping to develop a material that will have tremendous strength. For instance, a nanomaterial equivalent of 1 pound of steel would be 1/100th of that weight. Aircraft and spacecraft "can take advantage of these strength-to-weight ratios big time," said Gordon Gibson, who manages Lockheed's nanotechnology effort.

Researchers say it's possible that some "showstopping" technology problem could impede development. But for now, they're imagining computers so small that they could travel in blood streams, much like the miniature craft in the 1966 movie Fantastic Voyage.

"This is pure science fiction now, but things are moving rapidly," said Walter Finkelstein, president and CEO of NanoFab Inc., a nanotechnology developer in Columbia, Md.