Large-scale integration (LSI) describes a circuit-building technique whereby 3,000-100,000 components (i.e., transistors, capacitors, and other devices) are manufactured as part of a single solid object (usually a chip of crystalline silicon). Integration means wholeness; the components of an integrated circuit are parts of a physical whole. Large-scale integration is distinguished from other scales of integration by the number of components integrated. Small-scale integration (SSI) involves fewer than 100 components, medium-scale integration (MSI) 100-3,000, very-large-scale integration (VLSI) 100,000-1,000,000, and ultra-large-scale integration (ULSI) anything over 1,000,000. Integrated manufacture means not only that millions of individual circuit components can be built simultaneously using photography and chemistry (masking and etching), rather than by crafting individual bits of material, but that the millions of connections between those components can be made at the same time. Integrated circuits are thus not only smaller and cheaper to make than equivalent devices built out of...