Microstructures and microelectronics

The scientific and technological achievements in the three decades following the invention of the transistor are unprecedented in the history of science. Accompanying and supporting this sparkling series of inventions and discoveries is a new industrial revolution that is still in the making. Microelectronics has achieved apparently miraculous results in both consumer and industrial products and services. A remarkable feature of these achievements has been that in almost every case, the microelectronic products have become steadily cheaper in an otherwise inflationary economy. Two major reasons for this deflationary effect are marketplace competition and the ever‐increasing capability to produce microstructures. The ability to construct thousands of devices already connected in a digital circuit and to build the circuit in the area used for a single device a decade earlier (see, for example, figure 1) can serve as a general example of the effect of microstructure capability on microelectronics.