Inspired by MSU professor, graduate students explore new territory for electronic chips

Kyle Ross snaps open the thin, black, pocket-watch-sized case in his hand. Inside, 38 silicon chips glint in the light, none of them big enough to cover the end of a pencil eraser.

"When I first saw them I couldn’t believe their size," said Ross, a graduate student in electrical engineering from Whitehall. "I thought: ‘Holy cow those are small’."

The chips are home to a circuit of Ross’ own design: a tiny building block to what someday could be a high-frequency communication device. Under a microscope, an electronic chip looks like an enormous metropolis. What Ross holds in his hand is one street on that city, a circuit built of devices 100 times smaller than the width of a human hair.

By Tracy Ellig, MSU News Service

Full Story: http://www.montana.edu/cpa/news/nwview.php?article=3801