  The paper investigates the linkages between the characteristics of
technologies and the structure of a firms' knowledge base. Nanotechnologies
have been defined as converging technologies that operate at the nanoscale, and
which require integration to fulfill their economic promises. Based on a
worldwide database of nanofirms, the paper analyses the degree of convergence
and the convergence mechanisms within firms. It argues that the degree of
convergence in a firm's nano-knowledge base is relatively independent from the
size of the firm's nano-knowledge base. However, while firms with small
nano-knowledge bases tend to exploit convergence in each of their
patents/publications, firms with large nano-knowledge bases tend to separate
their nano-R&D activities in the different established fields and achieve
diversity through the juxtaposition of the output of these independent
activities
