FSNA 165 - Silicon and its Applications

Cyrus Mody argues that the changes in American science that began in the 1960s co-evolved with and were shaped by the needs of the "civilianized" US semiconductor industry. Mody views "Moore's Law" less as prediction than as self-fulfilling prophecy, pointing to the enormous investments of capital, people, and institutions the semiconductor industry required--the "long arm" of Moore's Law that helped shape all of science. Mody offers a series of case studies in microelectronics that illustrate the reach of Moore's Law.

Even as we tentatively enter the nanotechnology era, we are now encountering the 50th anniversary of the invention of the IC. Will silicon continue to be the pre-eminent material and will Moore's Law continue unabated, albeit in a broader economic venue, in the nanotechnology era? This monograph addresses these issues by a re-examination of the scientific and technological foundations of the micro-electronics era. It also features two visionary articles of Nobel laureates.