Product Code Database
Miniaturization (British English: miniaturisation) is the trend to manufacture ever-smaller mechanical, optical, and electronic products and devices. Examples include miniaturization of mobile phones, computers and vehicle engine downsizing. In electronics, the exponential scaling and miniaturization of silicon (MOS transistors) leads to the transistor count on an integrated circuit chip doubling every two years, an observation known as Moore's law. This leads to MOS integrated circuits such as microprocessors and being built with increasing transistor density, faster performance, and lower power consumption, enabling the miniaturization of electronic devices.
In the early 1960s, Gordon Moore, who later founded Intel, recognized that the ideal electrical and scaling characteristics of MOSFET devices would lead to rapidly increasing integration levels and unparalleled growth in electronics applications. Moore's law, which he described in 1965, and which was later named after him, predicted that the number of transistors on an IC for minimum component cost would double every 18 months. In 1974, Robert H. Dennard at IBM recognized the rapid MOSFET scaling technology and formulated the related Dennard scaling rule. (2025). 9781292060552, Pearson. ISBN 9781292060552 Moore described the development of miniaturization during the 1975 International Electron Devices Meeting, confirming his earlier predictions.
By 2004, electronics companies were producing silicon IC chips with switching MOSFETs that had feature size as small as 130 nanometers (nm) and development was also underway for chips a nanoelectronics in size through the nanotechnology initiative. (2025). 9788177646160, Allied Publishers. ISBN 9788177646160 The focus is to make components smaller to increase the number that can be integrated into a single wafer and this required critical innovations, which include increasing wafer size, the development of sophisticated metal connections between the chip's circuits, and improvement in the used for masks () in the photolithography processes. These last two are the areas where miniaturization has moved into the nanometer range.
In medical technology, engineers and designers have been exploring miniaturization to shrink components to the micro and nanometer range. Smaller devices can have lower cost, be made more portable (e.g.: for ambulances), and allow simpler and less invasive medical procedures.
|
|
