electrical connections; it just happens to stick to silicon and silicon dioxide really well to form very reliable interconnections. The combined properties of these elements make the evershrinking transistor and more complex integrated circuits possible.

I know of no other technology that gets better as the element gets smaller. For example, neither internal combustion engines nor electric motors get better as they get smaller. The miracle of silicon provides the foundation for the whole high-technology industry. This new industry grew rapidly from 1957, and Fairchild Semiconductor was one of its leaders.

As silicon technology advances and transistors get smaller, more of them can be packed on a single chip to perform more complex electronics functions. For example, let's say the next generation of silicon technology allows us to pack 2,000 transistors on a single chip, instead of the maximum of 1,000 that we could place in the previous generation. What happens? First of all, one can build a 1,000-transistor chip on the new technology that is half the size of the previous-generation chip. Because the cost of a chip is roughly proportional to its size, the new chip will cost only about half what the old chip costs. In addition, the smaller chip will perform at higher speeds and consume less power. Therefore, it can be sold for less than the old chip, while performing better in every way! This clearly is more attractive to custome