Considering the Future of Microsystems Technology on the Occasion of DARPA's 50th Anniversary

The paper presents the challenges in the field of microsystems technology development of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for its future projects. Among them are: the challenge of maintaining and exploiting the opportunities embodied by Moore's law; exploiting precision materials deposition and control over composition and device structure of semiconductor material to attain the highest possible frequency and circuit speed; managing the properties of infrared materials, exploiting the advances in IC manufacturing; and harnessing the advances in photonics.