ABSTRACT
In the early years of the last century no one could have predicted that one day engineering will come to depend so heavily on artificial structures that are thousands of times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. Indeed, a hundred years ago, ‘thin as hair’ was a frequently used catch phrase. Engineering in those days was associated with large and often very large structures; both mechanical and architectural. Even vacuum tube-based electrical engineering didn’t deal with particularly small
devices. The development of the first Germanium bipolar transistor in 1947 started a new paradigm shift with the first inklings of miniaturisation in electrical engineering. However, it took another few years before the idea of printing devices on a piece of silicon took shape and ushered in the era of the integrated circuit that started the microelectronics revolution in earnest. From that time on, integrated semiconductor devices have been continually shrunk to ever smaller sizes in order to improve product functionality and return on manufacturing investments. There is still much steam left. Semiconductor industry will keep forging ahead in much the same way as it is doing today until at least 2018. Beyond that, radical new technologies will be needed to sustain the same pace of development. Some of this will, undoubtedly, be the technologies that are being researched today in academic and industrial R&D labs across the world. Exactly when the transition will take place is anybody’s guess but that it will happen is certain. This is a good enough reason why we should be interested in contemporary developments in nanotechnology but there is another dimension to it.
