In the future, there will be hundreds of billions of embedded chips and sensing devices integrated into everything from key chains and swimming pools to your apartment's walls and even your skin. All of these devices will be able to compute, sense and communicate with each other.

If that sounds creepy, consider one possible application: DARPA, the U.S. government agency that created the Internet, is funding research into "smart dust" -- millions of cheap, wireless sensors based on microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology.

Picture a day when the U.S. Air Force could drop smart dust on strategic areas of, say, Iraq to monitor whether a certain Mideast dictator is following the rules.

We're in Charge Here

That day has not arrived, however. Before researchers can develop smart dust systems, they must figure out how to shrink chips to microscopic size.

"Computer chips will get smaller, more powerful, connected and "pervasive." They'll bring digital intelligence into all kinds of objects and spaces," Intel Labs spokesperson Kevin Teixeira told NewsFactor.

Sensor devices are already as small as a cubic millimeter -- so small that scientists can paint slivers of silicon onto a wall, creating "sensor environments." Intel researchers have claimed that, using such devices, they can reduce overall power consumption by 30 percent.

Eventually, the sensor environment of the future may consist of thousands of small, embedded devices wirelessly connected with each other in a single room and using hardly any power.

High-Tech Workhorse

What will these tiny chips be made of? In all probability, they will be forged from the high-tech workhorse that started it all: silicon.

There is a tendency to look beyond silicon when the subject of future chips comes up, but according to the majority of researchers, silicon will be around for a while.

"We often get asked, "What comes after silicon?" But the more interesting question is, "What do you add to silicon to do something new?"" Teixeira said.

"Don't project today's chips into the future -- [don't think] that processors are simply going to be Pentium 4 processors with a billion transistors," he added. "By using MEMS and other technologies, we're going to find ways to do some amazing things with silicon. What steel was to the industrial revolution, silicon is to the computer revolution." (continued...)

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