VLSI and Technological Innovations

Abstract

Rather than innovation in general, I will discuss what I believe to be the most important opportunity since the industrial revolution, rivalling it in significance. This unique circumstance is created by the emerging Very Large Scale Integrated (VLSI) technology, with which enormously complex digital electronic systems can be fabricated on a single chip of Silicon one-tenth the size of a postage stamp. Out of it systems will be created which radically change our modes of communication, commerce, education, entertainment, science and the underlying rate of cultural evolution. The quality of human life can be improved in remarkable ways by these changes. Electronics creates no noxious by-products and uses only miniscule amounts of energy. It can accomplish tasks which were previously energy intensive, and dangerous or degrading to human workers. There is no doubt that this electronic revolution will take place.

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