Better and smaller

The trend that reaserches are trying to keep up to is most probably going to reach it's limits when humans will be dealing with atoms. No more molecules.
I explain: today researchers are spliting molecules into smaller molecules which allows us to have smaller devices, but when we will stucture devices by bonding the correct atom(s) together (ie. instead of breaking the existing bondings, create appropriate bondings) we will have reached the nanoscale and no more the microscale and with it a whole new world of mini robots will revolutionalize our daily lives (this is only my point of vue).
This system has got it's own limits though. Today, electronics totally rely on the caracteristics of the elements in use(ie. we generate current thanks to loose bondings between the nucleus of atoms and the electrons). These caracteristics are specific to every element, although some elements have similar caracteristics.
Unfortunatly, atoms all have a defined size, reaching smaller devices than an atoms seems totally unrealistic today.

Genisis of electronics

Moore, the co founder of Intel, predicted in 1965 that the amount of transistors stored on a chip would double every year and a half or 18 months. This was thanks to the newly coming era of integrated circuits. Since this theory was established it has proven true and has led a huge industry.

But this industry did not create itself haphazardly.

It's got a real history!
Let's take a first glance at the Electrical world: the ancestor, but not less forgotten, of the electronic world.

First evolution: 1874.
Ferdinand Braun discovers that crystals filament could conduct current in one direction under certain conditions.

Second evolution 1883.
Thomas Alva Edison discovers that you can take advantage of the current that flows through a filament to actually use the power it dissipates.
This might seem a little complicated, but calm down.
It's really easy, if you can generate a flow of electrons to go from some place to an other in an organized way, you generate a current(I). If the current crosses a resistor(R) which blocks the current I, and you still understand this, you then understand the very basics.

Volts = R x I
Power = V x I

Second electrical evolution: 1904.
John Ambroise Fleming discovers the importance of alternating the current in order to send signals. He invents the diode which restricts the movement of the charge particles. This device will allow the current to flow in only one direction by simply blocking the other.

Third electrical evolution: 1906.
Lee de Forest, known for his work on vacuum tubes, is the first who is able to amplify waves.
He connects a third control grid to Fleming's diode to be able to add energy to particles in order to propulse them.
The vacuum tube has been replaced by the much smaller and less expensive transistor

But it is not before 1947, that Bardeen and Brattain develops an alternative to the vacuum tube.
Bardeen and Brattain creat an amplifying circuit utilizing "transfer resistance" device.
The transistor is a controlled switch that can change from on to off, 1 to 0, or any other altenative of dual output.

1958 Jack Kibly is On the way to discovering Integrated Circuit
He has the idea to make a whole circuit of only one crystal, this is why we use silicon
But it will be in 1959 that Robert Noyce will produce the first actual IC

1965 Moore's Law.

In 1971 Intel takes the IC down one step further by placing all the parts that made a computer think on one small chip.
Intel invents the microprocessor.


And there it starts, this is the very beginning.
Moore him discovered that we could store and process twice as much data on a same area every year in a half by Integrating smaller Circuits (IC).
Thus, Moore only defined the pace of electronic evolution.

Who knows how long this pace will go for? The only thing I know is that you will not schrink infinitly......