As the focus on electronics moves West for Wescon, much attention will be directed toward microminiaturization. Comments of components manufacturers at New York's IRE Show in March showed the doubts that exist about the approach to the coming micromin era. Since the military is the primary potential user of micromin, parts producers have looked to the services to help clarify the future.
Col. Leon J.D. Rouge of the Army Signal Research and Development Lab, Ft. Monmouth, N.J., summed up a view that appears to be prevalent: "As any improved circuitry technique demonstrates reliability equivalent to other techniques, we will replace the old circuits with the new ones."
A timetable for development of various microminiaturization concepts has been one of the foggy issues in the program. Although Texas Instruments' solid circuits are off-the-shelf items, and Westinghouse Electric has built operating functional blocks, the Air Force still considers molecular electronics to be "applied research," said Lt. Col. Jeremy K. Schloss, chief of Wright Air Development Div.'s Electronics Technology Lab. (Electronic Design, Aug. 3, 1960, p. 42)
Military applications were a strong influence on the early development of integrated circuits.