ABSTRACT
Optical fi ber is made of silicon, although in a glassy (noncrystalline) form rather than a crystalline form as is used for making semiconductor electronics. This means that silicon is the principal basis for long-distance communication technology as well as the basis for computers. In this sense, the Internet, which is a huge collection of silicon-based computers linked together using silicon-based optical fi bers, is accurately described as The Silicon Web-the title of this book.
