ry.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website. Telecom Market Segments Telecom Market Segments IBM has been successful in its own right in this space. Long known as a manufacturer of memory chips, IBM recently announced a line of 3D chipsets, made by combining high-density, high-performance layers into a coupled stack. This allows the embedded transistors to be placed closer to each other, which accelerates the process of processing. A problem that the industry has often faced with 3D arrays is the heat required in the manufacturing process to add a second layer: The heat often degraded the first layer during the bonding process. The IBM method uses a lower temperature technique to bond the multiple layers to one another. In practice, a thin glass layer is applied to the face of the second layer, after which the other side is etched. The resulting wafer is 200 millionths of a millimeter thick, and is aligned and bonded to the first wafer. Because the resulting stacked wafer is so thin, it behaves as if the circuitry actually exists in a single layer. By using this 3D method, multiple functions can be combined in less "real estate," and processing speeds are dramatically improved. As optical technology has matured and become a viable alternative to electrical transport in certain circumstances, a new set of challenges have arisen. One challenge that has always faced the component indus- try is the ability to build optical chipsets. Electrons will live happily in two-dimensional space, moving in a very controlled fashion along a des- ignated conductor. Photons, on the other hand, are much more difficult to control. Attempts to build waveguide technology have succeeded using etched gratings, multiple fibers, and mirrors, but these solutions are by necessity quite large-a problem in a real-estate-constrained industry. New research into particle physics in Europe has yielded a small packet of energy called a (ready?) surface plas