Moores Law deals with the doubling of transistors on an IC every 16 months but for modern devices, the IC is only ten per cent or less of the total product. The remaining 90% is resistors, capacitors, inductors, antennas, filters, and switches. Students at Atlanta's Georgia Tech have made breakthroughs in miniaturization of these components that allow for increased performance well beyond Moore's Law.

GROWING FASTER: System integration using system-on-package (SOP) technology from Georgia Tech's Microsystems Packaging Research Center will see "More Than Moore's Law" take hold, as measured by component density. From about 50 components per square centimeter in 2004, component density will climb to about a million per square centimeter by 2020. Functional system density will escalate similarly.

IEEE Spectrum   has a huge spread on the SOP approach and its ramifications saying "This last application will see the convergence of biology, chemistry, and digital technology to produce capsules small enough to be introduced into the human body to monitor personal health daily. A capsule could be used, for example, to check vital signs and monitor parameters such as glucose levels, blood pressure, and even signs of cancer. The capsule would then wirelessly communicate the person's health status to a Web terminal outside the body or, via the Internet, to a physician (or to anyone, anywhere). Fitted with a reservoir, the capsule could also deliver drugs at programmed intervals to selected places within the body.

That tiny body capsule is certainly a compelling product, and we can expect many others. Imagine, for example, a home entertainment and control hub—a device that combines voice, video, data, sensing, and control functions. It could include a home computer, a cellphone, environmental and other sensors, a health monitoring device, and a satellite TV receiver, to name just some possibilities. A wireless broadband connection would link the system to the Internet, and the hub would serve as the remote control for all the home's appliances.

Yet the hub would be as small as a credit card.

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