Word: siliconized
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...Unknown in nature, these are similar to the innumerable "organic" (carbon-containing) compounds, but have the central chain of carbon atoms replaced by a silicon-oxygen chain. Common sand consists mainly of quartz, which is silicon dioxide...
...break came recently with the discovery that small silicon diodes, working much like the cat's-whisker crystals of early radio sets, can pick microwave energy out of the air and turn it into direct current with reasonable efficiency. Thousands of diodes, strung like glass beads on a network of wires, are needed to intercept Raytheon's beam. In the model helicopter demonstrated last week, they feed direct current at about 100 volts to a small motor taken from an electric drill. The beam of 2,450-megacycle microwaves starts out with three kilowatts of power; the diode...
Ranger was preparing itself for its long voyage. Its computer brain came to life and began issuing orders. It spread its purple wings so their silicon cells could make electricity out of sunlight. Its dish antenna unfolded; its tiny eyes (sensors) commanded tiny gas jets to turn the spacecraft so that they could bear on the sun and the earth. Its radios chattered furiously, sending reports that all was going well...
...resistor. A strip of gold and chromium is a good conductor, and serves as a thin wire. Capacitors can be made by covering tantalum with an oxide that acts as an insulator and then laying on a fresh film of gold. To make a complete circuit, tiny silicon transistors are electrically bonded to the proper sites. Complicated as it is, the process is wholly automatic, and up to one hundred microcircuits can be manufactured on a piece of glass 2½ inches square...
Integrated Silicon. But the stuff gets even smaller. Integrated circuits that include everything, even transistors, are built into a single chip of silicon. Westinghouse starts with a sheet of silicon eight one-thousandths of an inch thick and about the diameter of a quarter. On top of this, an even thinner layer of extra-pure silicon is deposited by evaporation and covered with photosensitive masking material. The mask is removed in patterns, allowing successive parts of the silicon to be exposed to vapors, such as boron, that change its electrical properties. Some of the tiny areas become built-in transistors...