Transistors promise more powerful logic, more logical power
As the United States seeks to reinvigorate its job market and move past economic recession, MIT News examines manufacturing’s role in the country’s economic future through this series on work at the Institute around manufacturing.Broadly speaking, the two major areas of research at MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratory (MTL) are electronics — transistors in particular — and microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS — tiny mechanical devices with moving parts. Both strains of research could have significant implications for manufacturing in the United States, but at least for the moment, the market for transistor innovation is far larger.MTL’s Judy Hoyt is proof of the influence that academic research can have on that market. In the 1990s, she helped pioneer the use of “strained silicon” — silicon whose atoms have been pried apart slightly more than normal — to improve the performance of microchips. Intel, most of whose chips are produced in the United...