Miniaturization

[6][7] This leads to MOS integrated circuits such as microprocessors and memory chips being built with increasing transistor density, faster performance, and lower power consumption, enabling the miniaturization of electronic devices.

[19] In the early 1960s, Gordon Moore, who later founded Intel, recognized that the ideal electrical and scaling characteristics of MOSFET devices would lead to rapidly increasing integration levels and unparalleled growth in electronic applications.

[20] Moore's law, which he described in 1965, and which was later named after him,[21] predicted that the number of transistors on an IC for minimum component cost would double every 18 months.

[24] The focus is to make components smaller to increase the number that can be integrated into a single wafer and this required critical innovations, which include increasing wafer size, the development of sophisticated metal connections between the chip's circuits, and improvement in the polymers used for masks (photoresists) in the photolithography processes.

[10] In medical technology, engineers and designers have been exploring miniaturization to shrink components to the micro and nanometer range.