Word: silicones
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...miniaturization of technology, having made extraordinary progress in the 40 years since the invention of the transistor, is about to make another shrinking leap. Adapting the chipmaking equipment used to squeeze millions of electrical circuits onto slivers of silicon, researchers are creating a lilliputian tool chest of tiny moving parts: valves, gears, springs, levers, lenses and ball bearings. One team at the University of California, Berkeley, has already built a silicon motor not much wider than an eyelash that can rotate 500 times a minute...
Welcome to the world of microtechnology, where machines the size of sand grains are harnessed to do useful work. Huge numbers of microscopic sensors are already employed to measure the temperature, air pressure and acceleration of airplanes and automobiles. Delco Electronics alone sells 7 million silicon pressure sensors a year to its parent company, General Motors, for use in power-train controls and diagnostics. But scientists at Berkeley, Stanford, M.I.T., AT&T, IBM and a handful of other research centers around the world see much broader possibilities for minuscule machines. They envision armies of gnat-size robots exploring space, performing...
...been overemphasized as a near-term threat. There are faults up and down the California coast capable of equaling the latest quake, and that is enough reason to worry. Likely candidates for significant quakes in Northern California include not only Berkeley and Oakland but also the Silicon Valley. The Los Angeles Basin, for its part, has experienced an increase in small earthquakes, which many seismologists find alarming. The message from Mother Nature seems unmistakable: Be prepared...
Using the new knowledge of the microcosm -- the invisible region populated by protons, electrons and other subatomic particles -- computer-chip manufacturers have been able to pack more and more information (and value) onto slivers of silicon whose material content represents less than 1% of their total expense. As chips are incorporated into everything from furnaces to cars, the value of these products resides increasingly in the "intelligence" stored in their electronic components. In the future, industrial might will depend less on mass production and more on the creative use of information technology. Gilder calls this phenomenon the "overthrow of matter...
Meanwhile, Americans were working on far more valuable computer parts. Using systems called silicon compilers, U.S. engineers have been able to design a vast array of custom chips to suit almost any purpose. These specialized chips can be much more profitable than the commodity chips mass-produced by the Japanese. As more and more instructions are etched onto chips, the balance of power in electronics is shifting from manufacturing prowess, Japan's strength, toward software and design, in which the U.S. excels...