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Elemental Business: Silicon Chips

Silicon chips have shrunk a million-fold since the 1960s, but is Moore's Law - and the computer revolution it heralded - about to run up against the laws of physics?

Silicon chips have shrunk a million-fold since Gordon Moore made his famous forecast in 1965, but is Moore's Law - and the computer revolution it heralded - about to run up against fundamental laws of physics? In the first of two programmes investigating silicon - the latest in our series looking at the elements of the periodic table and their role in the global economy - we travel to Silicon Valley to the biggest chip company of them all, Intel, co-founded by Gordon Moore himself.

We visit the Intel museum with company spokesperson Chuck Mulloy and get up close to a giant ingot of the purest material on earth. We speak to Intel's chief chip architect Mark T Bohr about the future of computing. And, professor Andrea Sella of University College London explain's what micro-processing has to do with old Muscovite windows - with a trip to the beach.

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18 minutes

Last on

Wed 23 Jul 2014 07:32GMT

Broadcast

  • Wed 23 Jul 2014 07:32GMT

Podcast