THE IMPACT OF SOLID-STATE ELECTRONICS ON COMPUTING AND COMMUNICATIONS

The transistor has become the fundamental building block of all comput ing and communications systems. A remarkable progression of regular an d persistent reductions in size and cost has resulted in ever-greater functionality per unit of silicon. This has enabled designers to achie ve enormous increases in the performance of computing and communicatio ns systems by applying innovative software, hardware, and architectura l improvements. No area of modern life is untouched by the astonishing progress of microelectronics and its powerful, closely allied field, photonics. Examples of such progress in this paper include the evoluti on of computers from massive, unreliable, experimental models to today 's personal computer; the evolution of computer subsystems, such as ma gnetic and optical mass storage media; and the deployment of new, high ly functional operating systems and other powerful software applicatio ns. In telecommunications, computers and stored program systems have b een deployed ubiquitously to enable today's global network infrastruct ure. While voice traffic still predominates in telecommunications, the growth of data traffic and the promise of networked video and multime dia are spurring the evolution toward broadband networks, where curren t and emerging microelectronic and opto-electronic technologies are va stly expanding data rates in local, wide area, and long distance netwo rks. Solid-state electronics also is addressing society's need for mob ility, helping to fuel the rapid growth of portability, increase funct ionality, and extend battery life. Additionally, solid-state electroni cs is enabling the explosive growth in personal communications, making it possible for people to reach out via networks to databases and to each other. This paper discusses these subjects, provides some brief h istorical perspectives, and speculates about future developments.