Wired 8.01: As the MEMS Revolution Takes Off, Small Is Getting Bigger Every Day

As the MEMS Revolution Takes Off, Small Is Getting Bigger Every Day Gnat-sized robots, microscopic gyroscopes, television beamed directly onto your retina. This may sound like a grocery list for a crazed sci-fi visionary. But all these projects are in the works today, thanks to an emerging chip technology known as microelectromechanical systems. While magical microbots may still be a few years away, MEMS are already a multibillion-dollar business in the car, printer, and display-projection industries. Traditional chips are flat, static structures. MEMS, by contrast, are silicon wafers packed with kinetic, three-dimensional gizmos: laboratories, laser-guided mirrors, canals flowing with chemicals. An offshoot of the semiconductor industry, MEMS benefit from the well-known peculiarities of the silicon universe - every year chips get tinier, cheaper, and faster. If proponents are correct, MEMS will soon be ubiquitous. There will be the far out (airborne micro flying machines, networked minibots) and the practical (disposable blood-pressure gauges, wearable pollution sensors). Within 20 years, there will be no avoiding MEMS: They will be in every telecom line, computer, and coffeemaker - even in our own bodies. As these sensors and actuators - devices that react to their environment - permeate the world, the fabric of daily existence will come alive. Like the transistor and