The environmental impact of production is relatively low, though the intensive robotics required results in high energy consumption. Otherwise, microprocessor factories use and produce no toxic substances and pollution is not considered to be a major issue. This attitude cannot continue indefinitely, however, because as populations rise and as more people demand personal computers that must be upgraded ever more frequently, the environmental effects of mass silicon chip manufacture will become significant.
I believe that engineers should be looking toward the time when quartz quarries and metal mines cease to meet the industry's needs. For example, the aluminium used in the circuitry could well be gleaned from recycled drink cans, saving on 95% of the energy costs of producing aluminium from bauxite. Electronic and mechanical engineers need to work together to make sure that robots use less energy despite increasing refinement and improving technology, so that the greater numbers of silicon chip factories do not translate to a greater impact on the environment. The possibilities of creating silicon chips from recycled glass should be explored. Quartz is a very abundant mineral on earth, but high-purity quartz must be collected from somewhere, and that usually translates to natural landscapes being exploited. Computer manufacturers could have a much cheaper alternative in recycled bottle glass, which is already very pure. At the same time, recycling companies, and hence the planet, would benefit from the constant demand this would create. The challenge for materials engineers is to change the amorphous (non-crystalline) glass into suitable crystalline form.
Computers that run on an entirely different mechanism may also be in store for the future. Australian scientists and engineers are investigating computers that use lasers and quantum physics to transmit electronic commands. Because this would involve signals travelling at or close to the speed of light, this will naturally mean computers of this type would render the current method of sending messages through solid metal wires ridiculously slow. This exciting prospect, however, is unlikely to become reality for a great many years to come, so in the meantime, while we are waiting for the quantum physicists to make their leap, other engineers should work on simple recycling and energy-saving methods for manufacturing the good old silicon chip.
Go To Page: 1
