I happen to be reading at this moment Michio Kaku's book "Visions", published on Oct 97. MEMS is to me nanotechnology going to market.
"From now to 2020, the first generation of micromachines, called microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), are expected to find wide commercial application. MEMS are miniature sensors and motors about the size of a dust particle. Although they are a still far cry from true molecular machines, prototypes of MEMS are already entering the marketplace, creating a $2.2 billion industry which is expected to exceed $15 billion early in the next century....
... instead of etching millions of transistors, scientists are now etching tiny sensors and motors onto silicon wafers. In addition, tiny X-ray beams are being used to etch polymers, which can be electroplated to create metallic molds...
... MEMS could revolutionize a number of fields. For example, in medicine, MEMS might be able to :
- dramatically reduce the current cost of $20,000 laboratory spectrometers down to $10
- create a complete laboratory-on-a-chip, capable of full medical diagnostics and chemical analysis (I am following AFFX for a p53 test machine, that is for my colon cancer to come, BTW)
- create micro-devices which can thread blood vessels, driven by a micro-car. (the other way is to drink red wine, but this has to be considered as a personal opinion)...
...The military are also interested; they are studying MEMS called "surveillance dust", which can be sprayed over a battlefield. This dust, which will hover in the air for hours, can be equipped with infrared detectors, even poison-gas detectors, and can be used to locate enemy positions... (well described in Neal Stephensons "The Diamond Age", even a better novel (Hugo Award) than his former cult book Snowcrash (Geocities today <g>)
...one of the people backing MEMS technology is Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, who coined Moore's law...."
I really recommend reading Michio Kaku's book, and I hope he will not mind my posting of this excerpt on SI <g>
Just my two cents,
MiB |
