HP15C LE vs. HP15C

[Katie Wasserman]

(07-05-2014 07:17 AM)Steve Simpkin Wrote:  Like landing a man on the moon, I doubt we will ever see anything like that again in our lifetimes.

You're probably right about that. The Voyagers used SOS (Silicon on Sapphire) CMOS technology that HP had developed just a couple of years earlier. Using a sapphire insulating base for the silicon made for ultra-low current leakage transistors. SOS (and similar tech) is still used for some wireless technology chips, but it's more expensive than bulk silicon. The real problem is/was that it's not that widely used and that economy of scale meant that most "fabs" (semiconductor fabrication plants) just don't/didn't produce chips using it and, of course, there are many fewer fabs than there used to be.