Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA25961 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 20 Mar 2002 14:47:22 GMT X-Originating-IP: [137.110.248.206] From: "Grant Callaghan" <grantc4@hotmail.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: The meme making process Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 06:41:25 -0800 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: <LAW2-F59Nu7xi6Q4GYO00019fc9@hotmail.com> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 20 Mar 2002 14:41:26.0475 (UTC) FILETIME=[5068A9B0:01C1D01D] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
How a meme is born, propagated and serves as an attractor for new memes.
From Technology Review Newsletter.
While lying on the beach during a vacation on the Spanish coast in 1999,
physicist Jamal Ramdani had an epiphany. As the sand complied to the
contours of his body, Ramdani, a researcher at Motorola Labs in Tempe, AZ,
suddenly envisioned a solution to a puzzle that had perplexed the
semiconductor industry for 30 years: how to combine cheap silicon with
high-speed, light-emitting but far more expensive semiconducting materials
like gallium arsenide, all on a single wafer.
Because the materials are physically mismatched, layering one on top of the
other to produce a chip with optimal electronic and optical properties has
been virtually impossible. It may have been the sand on that Spanish beach,
which is made of the same mineral from which silicon wafers are derived,
that provided Ramdani with the pivotal hint. In any case, Ramdani recalls,
“I came back to Phoenix, borrowed a machine for growing compound
semiconductors, and in two or three shots, we had gallium arsenide sitting
on silicon.”
The benefits of having the functionality of gallium arsenide—particularly
its abilities to handle wireless communications and emit light—on an
inexpensive silicon chip were not lost on Motorola executives.
High-performance chips made out of gallium arsenide and other so-called
compound semiconductors are widely used in everything from cell phones to
switches in optical communications networks. At the very least, Ramdani’s
invention could mean replacing these costly chips with far less expensive
gallium-arsenide-on-silicon ones. In the two years since Ramdani’s
breakthrough, Motorola has filed over 300 patents on the technology; last
fall, the company used Ramdani’s method to build prototype chips for
boosting signals in cell phones. To commercialize the new material, Motorola
has started up a wholly owned subsidiary—Thoughtbeam, in Austin,
TX—promising the new materials will find their way into electronic and
optical devices within the next two years.
The impact of Motorola’s chip technology could go far beyond cheaper cell
phones or optical devices. Today, if you want a fast, inexpensive
microprocessor, you need a silicon chip; if you want a chip to handle
optical functions or high-frequency radio signals, you need compound
semiconductors like gallium arsenide or indium phosphide. As a result,
equipment like cell phones and communications network switches requires
multiple semiconductor devices. Eventually, predict some experts, the
Motorola technology could make it possible to integrate the functions of
gallium arsenide and silicon on a single chip, using each of the materials
for what it does best. The result would be a superchip. Instead of having
multiple chips in a DVD player doing different tasks—generating light to
read the disc, fielding input from viewers, decoding digital data into
images and sound—a single chip could handle it all.
The semiconductor industry has been dreaming of such a superchip for
decades—and a number of researchers are actively pursuing that dream. For
instance, Eugene Fitzgerald, a materials scientist at MIT, has been working
on the problem for over a decade and has published descriptions of his own
technique for growing gallium arsenide on silicon. He and many other
skeptics question whether the Motorola technology will prove to be a grand
slam. “Every few years, there is a so-called solution, but upon closer
examination, you see that it isn’t one at all,” says Fitzgerald.
Others, however, are so impressed with the potential of Ramdani’s
breakthrough that they believe the technology could fundamentally change the
dynamics of the chip-making business, finally bridging the materials divide
between silicon and compound semiconductors that has become a fundamental
fact in the industry. According to Steve Cullen, director and principal
analyst of semiconductor research services at Cahners In-Stat Group, the
Motorola advance could “go down in history as a major turning point for the
semiconductor industry.”
Grant
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This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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