Spiro, I can't even begin to tell you how they can make a transistor so tiny, I don't have that kind of background. I do know some buzz words like PNP and NPN transistors, but that doesn't help either of us. I do know that the basic production method of a chip is with etching. They take a base material, like silicon and dope the surface with a conductive, or semi conductive material. Then a circuit is etched onto the surface. Basically, by leaving different widths and thicknesses of the semiconductor in some places, and completely removing it in other places, you create a circuit with different properties based on where the connections between the semiconductors remain and where it has been etched away.
Here is an example I saw in a class a long time ago. The instructor had drawn a picture of a circuit on a piece of paper with a lead pencil. Some sections had wider lines than other sections. He had a battery and a light bulb taped to the piece of paper with wires taped onto the drawing. He went through a bunch of calculations showing what the resistance of a line so and so thick and so and so wide, would be. Blah blah blah. Finally, at the end of the class, he took his pencil and drew a line closing the open circuit and the light bulb lit up. One thing that chip manufacturers are talking about is that they are approaching a minimum size for circuit elements on a chip. The lines connecting elements on the chip surface can't get smaller than a single atom of the semiconductor material. When they finally reach that scale, there will have to be a change in the basic concept of an integrated circuit chip, IE, going to an optical system instead of electric. At which point, the limiting factor will eventually become a single wave length of the light they use. OK, I'm done talking out of my ass, for now. -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (412) 268-9081
